Optimizing Doppler laser cooling protocols for quantum sensing with 3D ion crystals in a Penning trap
Summarize this article with:
Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.22541 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 26 Feb 2026] Title:Optimizing Doppler laser cooling protocols for quantum sensing with 3D ion crystals in a Penning trap Authors:John Zaris, Wes Johnson, Athreya Shankar, John J. Bollinger, Allison L. Carter, Daniel H.E. Dubin, Scott E. Parker View a PDF of the paper titled Optimizing Doppler laser cooling protocols for quantum sensing with 3D ion crystals in a Penning trap, by John Zaris and 6 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Large, 3D trapped ion crystals offer improved sensitivity in quantum sensing protocols, and are expected to be implemented as platforms in near-future experiments. However, numerical techniques used to study the laser cooling of such crystals are inefficient as the number of ions, $N$, in the crystal increases. Here we develop a powerful numerical framework to simulate laser cooling of up to $10^5$ ions stored in a Penning trap. We apply this framework to characterize and optimize the cooling of ellipsoidal 3D crystals. We document new pathways to enhanced cooling based on the addition of an axial component to the potential energy-dominated $\boldsymbol{E}\times\boldsymbol{B}$ modes. Furthermore, we observe greatly enhanced cooling of the perpendicular kinetic energy to below 1 mK in prolate ion crystals, enabling a simplified cooling beam setup for such crystals. We propose specific values of trap and laser beam parameters which lead to optimal cooling in a variety of examples. This work illustrates the feasibility of preparing large 3D crystals for high-sensitivity quantum science protocols, motivating their use in future experiments. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2602.22541 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.22541v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.22541 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: John Zaris [view email] [v1] Thu, 26 Feb 2026 02:30:09 UTC (7,450 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Optimizing Doppler laser cooling protocols for quantum sensing with 3D ion crystals in a Penning trap, by John Zaris and 6 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 Change to browse by: physics physics.plasm-ph References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)