Observation of a Topological Berry Phase with a Single Phonon in an Ion Microtrap Array
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2512.08037 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 8 Dec 2025] Title:Observation of a Topological Berry Phase with a Single Phonon in an Ion Microtrap Array Authors:Justin F. Niedermeyer, Nathan K. Lysne, Katherine C. McCormick, Jonas Keller, Craig W. Hogle, Matthew G. Blain, Roman Schmied, Robert Jördens, Susanna L. Todaro, David J. Wineland, Andrew C. Wilson, Daniel H. Slichter, Dietrich Leibfried View a PDF of the paper titled Observation of a Topological Berry Phase with a Single Phonon in an Ion Microtrap Array, by Justin F. Niedermeyer and 12 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Controlled quantum mechanical motion of trapped atomic ions can be used to simulate and explore collective quantum phenomena and to process quantum information. Groups of cold atomic ions in an externally applied trapping potential self-organize into "Coulomb crystals" due to their mutual electrostatic repulsion. The motion of the ions in these crystals is strongly coupled, and the eigenmodes of motion all involve multiple ions. While this enables studies of many-body physics, it limits the flexibility and tunability of the system as a quantum platform. Here, we demonstrate an array of trapped ions in individual trapping sites whose motional modes can be controllably coupled and decoupled by tuning the local applied confining potential for each ion. We show that a single motional quantum, or phonon, can be coherently shared among two or three ions confined at the vertices of an equilateral triangle 30 $\mu$m on a side. We can adiabatically tune the ion participation in the motional modes around a closed contour in configuration space, observing that the single-phonon wavefunction acquires a topological Berry phase if the contour encircles a conical intersection of motional eigenvalue surfaces. We observe this phase by single-phonon interference and study its breakdown as the motional mode tuning becomes non-adiabiatic. Our results show that precise, individual quantum control of ion motion in a two-dimensional array can provide unique access to quantum multi-body effects. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2512.08037 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2512.08037v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.08037 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Justin Niedermeyer [view email] [v1] Mon, 8 Dec 2025 20:57:16 UTC (14,928 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Observation of a Topological Berry Phase with a Single Phonon in an Ion Microtrap Array, by Justin F. Niedermeyer and 12 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2025-12 Change to browse by: physics physics.atom-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?)