title: Realization of Translational Symmetry in Trapped Cold Ion Rings.
abstract: We crystallize up to 15 ^{40}Ca^{+} ions in a ring with a microfabricated silicon surface Paul trap. Delocalization of the Doppler laser-cooled ions shows that the translational symmetry of the ion ring is preserved at millikelvin temperatures. By characterizing the collective motion of the ion crystals, we identify homogeneous electric fields as the dominant symmetry-breaking mechanism at this energy scale. With increasing ion numbers, such detrimental effects are reduced. We predict that, with only a ten-ion ring, uncompensated homogeneous fields will not break the translational symmetry of the rotational ground state. This experiment opens a door towards studying quantum many-body physics with translational symmetry at the single-particle level.
authors.affiliation: Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Hao-Kun
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Urban
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Crystal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Noel
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.affiliation: Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ransford
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Boerge
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hemmerling
authors.affiliation: Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.|Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Tongcang
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.|Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Hartmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Häffner
authors.affiliation: Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.|Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang