title: Sharp phase transitions in a small frustrated network of trapped ion spins.
abstract: Sharp quantum phase transitions typically require a large system with many particles. Here we show that, for a frustrated fully connected Ising spin network represented by trapped atomic ions, the competition between different spin orders leads to rich phase transitions whose sharpness scales exponentially with the number of spins. This unusual finite-size scaling behavior opens up the possibility of observing sharp quantum phase transitions in a system of just a few trapped ion spins.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and MCTP, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
authors.forename: G-D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Monroe
authors.forename: L-M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Duan