Ming Gong

Recently, large-scale trapped ion systems have been realized in experiments for quantum simulation and quantum computation. They are the simplest systems for dynamical stability and parametric resonance. In this model, the Mathieu equation plays the most fundamental role for us to understand the stability and instability of a single ion. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of trapped ions with the Coulomb interaction based on the Hamiltonian equation. We show that the many-body interaction will not influence the phase diagram for instability. Then, the dynamics of this model in the large damping limit will also be analytically calculated using few trapped ions. Furthermore, we find that in the presence of modulation, synchronization dynamics can be observed, showing an exchange of velocities between distant ions on the left side and on the right side of the trap. These dynamics resemble to that of the exchange of velocities in Newton's cradle for the collision of balls at the same time. These dynamics are independent of their initial conditions and the number of ions. As a unique feature of the interacting Mathieu equation, we hope this behavior, which leads to a quasi-periodic solution, can be measured in current experimental systems. Finally, we have also discussed the effect of anharmonic trapping potential, showing the desynchronization during the collision process. It is hopped that the dynamics in this many-body Mathieu equation with damping may find applications in quantum simulations. This model may also find interesting applications in dynamics systems as a pure mathematical problem, which may be beyond the results in the Floquet theorem.

The quantum to classical transition (QCT) is one of the central mysteries in quantum physics. This process is generally interpreted as state collapse from measurement or decoherence from interacting with the environment. Here we define the quantumness of a Hamiltonian by the free energy difference between its quantum and classical descriptions, which vanishes during QCT. We apply this criterion to the many-body Rabi model and study its scaling law across the phase transition, finding that not only the temperature and Planck constant, but also all the model parameters are important for this transition. We show that the Jaynes-Cummings and anti Jaynes-Cummings models exhibit greater quantumness than the Rabi model. Moreover, we show that the rotating wave and anti-rotating wave terms in this model have opposite quantumness in QCT. We demonstrate that the quantumness may be enhanced or suppressed at the critical point. Finally, we estimate the quantumness of the Rabi model in current trapped ion experiments. The quantumness provides an important tool to characterize the QCT in a vast number of many-body models.