 |
Like molecules, two-dimensional ion crystals can exhibit changes in the spatial arrangement of the particles that are triggered by variations in the confining potential. We studied the real-time dynamics of isomerization of a 6-ion crystal and demonstrated a new platform for emulating molecular processes, paving the way to study quantum superpositions of crystal configurations in two-dimensional Coulomb crystals. Our work on metastable states of ion crystals is now published, read more on Physical Review Research! N. Mizukami et al., |
An ultracold gas plus an ion! In our project, we plan to realize a new-generation atom-ion machine in order to realize new quantum simulations of a many-body system in the presence of one or more localized impurities. With this setup, we plan to investigate fundamental atom-ion interactions in the ultracold regime, and to use these controlled interactions to realize a platform for investigating out-of-equilibrium quantum systems and quantum thermodynamics.