Simulating quantum effects of cosmological expansion using a static ion trap

Abstract

We propose a new experimental testbed that uses ions in the collective ground state of a static trap for studying the analog of quantum-field effects in cosmological spacetimes, including the Gibbons-Hawking effect for a single detector in de Sitter spacetime, as well as the possibility of modeling inflationary structure formation and the entanglement signature of de Sitter spacetime. To date, proposals for using trapped ions in analog gravity experiments have simulated the effect of gravity on the field modes by directly manipulating the ions' motion. In contrast, by associating laboratory time with conformal time in the simulated universe, we can encode the full effect of curvature in the modulation of the laser used to couple the ions' vibrational motion and electronic states. This model simplifies the experimental requirements for modeling the analog of an expanding universe using trapped ions and enlarges the validity of the ion-trap analogy to a wide range of interesting cases.

Quantum simulation

“…This idea might be experimentally challenging but it opens up a new possible way to study cosmology. The study of the analogue of cosmological particle creation with trapped ions was proposed in (Schützhold et al, 2007), and more recently, the analogue of quantum field effects in cosmological spacetimes was investigated in (Menicucci et al, 2010). There are also numerous similarities between the behavior of superfluid helium and cosmological phenomena, such as processes in the early universe, as discussed in detail in (Volovik, 2009).…”

“…Unruh effect Ions (Alsing et al, 2005) Hawking radiation Atoms (Giovanazzi, 2005) Ions (Horstmann et al, 2010) Superconducting circuits (Nation et al, 2009) Universe expansion BEC (Fischer and Schützhold, 2004) Ions (Menicucci et al, 2010;Schützhold and Mostame, 2005) Atomic physics:…”

Will Quantum Cosmology Resurrect Chaotic Inflation Model?

“…It has been suggested that a static ion trap may simulate the quantum effects of expanding universe. 38 It has also been observed that the quantum cosmology for the FRW universe minimally coupled to a massive scalar field is equivalent to a spinless charged particle in a homogeneous timedependent magnetic field along a fixed direction. 39 The infinite oscillations near the singularity can be simulated by time-dependent magnetic fields of over-critical strength.…”

Domain structures in quantum graphity

“…Condensed matter physics provides a third conceptual framework, where gravity is viewed as an emergent phenomenon. Motivated by techniques and concepts native to the study of manybody interactions in condensed matter physics, this perspective has recently stimulated investigations into gravity analogues in condensed matter systems [7][8][9][10][11][12], emergent graviton excitations in qubit models [13], and quantum graphity (CDT and matrix models [14,15] may also be viewed from this perspective).…”