Decoherence and decay of motional quantum states of a trapped atom coupled to engineered reservoirs

We present results from an experimental study of the decoherence and decay of quantum states of a trapped atomic ion’s harmonic motion interacting with several types of engineered reservoirs. We experimentally simulate three types of reservoirs: a high-temperature amplitude reservoir, a zero-temperature amplitude reservoir, and a high-temperature phase reservoir. Interaction with these environments causes the ion’s motional state to decay or heat, and in the case of superposition states, to lose coherence. We report measurements of the decoherence of superpositions of coherent states and two-Fock-state superpositions into these reservoirs, as well as the decay and heating of Fock states. We confirm the theoretically well-known scaling laws that predict that the decoherence rate of superposition states scales with the square of the “size” of the state.