Quantum Phases of Trapped Ions in an Optical Lattice

Understand

We propose loading trapped ions into microtraps formed by an optical lattice.

• For harmonic microtraps, the Coulomb coupling of the spatial motions of neighboring ions can be used to construct a broad class of effective short-range Hamiltonians acting on an internal degree of freedom of the ions.
• For large anharmonicities, on the other hand, the spatial motion of the ions itself represents a spin-1/2 model with frustrated dipolar XY interactions.
• We illustrate the latter setup with three systems: the linear chain, the zig-zag ladder, and the triangular lattice.