Arxiv Selection Jan 2019

Jan 1-Jan 7 Biao Huang, Jan 8- Jan 14 Xuguang Yue, Jan 15-Jan 21 Zehan Li, Jan 22-Jan 28 Jiansong Pan

Jan 8

arXiv:1901.01661 [pdf, other]

Time fractals and discrete scale invariance with trapped ions

Dean Lee, Jacob Watkins, Dillon Frame, Gabriel Given, Rongzheng He, Ning Li, Bing-Nan Lu, Avik Sarkar

Comments: 6 + 6 pages (main + supplemental materials), 2 + 3 figures (main + supplemental materials)

Subjects: Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); Nuclear Theory (nucl-th); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

We show that a one-dimensional chain of trapped ions can be engineered to produce a quantum mechanical system with discrete scale invariance and fractal-like time dependence. By discrete scale invariance we mean a system that replicates itself under a rescaling of distance for some particular scale factor. Similarly, a time fractal is a signal that is invariant under the rescaling of time. These features are reminiscent of the Efimov effect, which has been predicted and observed in bound states of three-body systems. We demonstrate that discrete scale invariance in the trapped ion system can be controlled with two independently tunable parameters and discuss the extension to many-body states where the discrete scaling symmetry is local and heterogeneous. The results we present can be realized using existing technologies developed for trapped ion quantum simulators.