Progress towards Simulation of Frenkel-exciton models with Long Range Interactions using Trapped Ions

Energy transfer (ET) reactions form the basis of several processes in light harvesting materials. Analog quantum simulation of models describing these systems might offer insights into their optimal design. Here, we first introduce our theoretical investigation of a Frenkel-exciton model with long-range interacting qubits coupled to a damped, collective bosonic mode to study vibrationally assisted ET processes in donor-acceptor systems with internal substructures analogous to light-harvesting complexes [1]. This model consists of groups of qubits (monomers) that are subjected to a long-range spin-hopping Hamiltonian and a spin-phonon coupling with tunable onsite energies, and are separated by coolant qubits to damp the bosonic mode. We show how a trapped-ion simulator can realize such open-quantum system models natively by combining sympathetic cooling and coherent manipulations of spin and phonons [2,3,4]. We highlight our progress in developing the experimental tools needed for the simulation: 1) a monolithic blade trap for ¹⁷¹Yb⁺ ions, where the hyperfine ground-state qubit encodes each molecular site, and the optical qubit of coolant ions facilitates the damping process of the bosonic mode; 2) individual Raman beams controlled by a 32-channel AOM for coherent interactions; 3) individual 411nm beams controlled by an SLM for implementing sympathetic cooling.

[1] Fallas Padilla, Diego, et al. manuscript in preparation (2025)

[2] Kang, M., Nuomin, H., Chowdhury, S.N. et al. Nat Rev Chem 8, 340–358 (2024).

[3] So, Visal, et al. Sci. Adv.10,eads8011(2024)

[4] Sun, Ke, et al. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.14624 (2024).