Christopher Foot

We investigate the feasibility of observing matter-wave interference of a micron-sized charged particle by putting it into a quantum superposition of states with a distinguishable separation. In the proposed method, an atomic ion is confined in a linear Paul trap along with the massive charged particle so that we can make use of the extensive toolbox of experimental techniques developed to control quantum states of trapped ions, and to manipulate their motions with high fidelity operations. This approach provides a stringent test of the predictions of dynamical reduction models of delocalised quantum superpositions of a particle, reaching macroscopicities of up to $\mathcal{M}=17$.

We consider the stability of systems subjected to periodic parametric driving such that their equations of motion are ordinary differential equations with periodic coefficients and carry out a detailed analysis of important aspects of such systems in the context of the confinement of ions by oscillating electric fields. We show how they can be understood in terms of a pseudopotential approximation and resonances arising from the parametric excitation and investigate the properties of a novel linear Paul trap configuration operating with two radio-frequencies to simultaneously confine two species with extremely different charge-to-mass ratios. The theoretical calculations have been verified by molecular dynamics simulations and normal modes analysis.