title: Trapped-ion quantum simulator: experimental application to nonlinear interferometers.
abstract: We show how an experimentally realized set of operations on a single trapped ion is sufficient to simulate a wide class of Hamiltonians of a spin-1/2 particle in an external potential. This system is also able to simulate other physical dynamics. As a demonstration, we simulate the action of two nth order nonlinear optical beam splitters comprising an interferometer sensitive to phase shift in one of the interferometer beam paths. The sensitivity in determining these phase shifts increases linearly with n, and the simulation demonstrates that the use of nonlinear beam splitters (n=2,3) enhances this sensitivity compared to the standard quantum limit imposed by a linear beam splitter (n=1).
authors.affiliation: Time and Frequency Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Leibfried
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: DeMarco
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rowe
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ben-Kish
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Britton
authors.forename: W M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Itano
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jelenković
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Langer
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Rosenband
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Wineland