Prospects for the Application of Optimal Control Theory to Quantum State Engineering in Segment

Ion Traps
Laser cooled ions in Paul traps provide an ideal subject for quantum state engineering. In the past, conventional Paul
traps have been used to deterministically entangle up to eight ions[1]. In order to achieve the goal of manipulating
more ions with high fidelity, one has to resort to segmented trap structures. Then, the ions with be laser-manipulated
as pairs and shuttled around between different trap sites. We numerically investigate how optimal control theory
(OCT) can be used to provide time-dependent control parameters for different operational steps in our envisaged
experiments. These are ground state cooling of the ions, the various shuttling operations and the gate operations used
for quantum state manipulation. First results indicate that OCT provides a tool for finding control solutions to the
occurring complicated nonlinear control problems, which will eventually allow for faster more accurate processes in our
traps. This would in turn allow to push the limit further towards creating large scale entanglement, investigating the
decoherence of such states end reaching the quantum error correction threshold for quantum computing applications.
We will also illustrate the envisaged experimental implementation of our ion trap quantum processor.