Authors: Kuang Chen, Scott T. Sullivan, Wade G. Rellergert and Eric R. Hudson
Affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095
Abstract: Samples of ultracold 174Yb+ ions, confined in a linear radio-frequency Paul trap, are heated via micromotion interruption, while their temperature, density, and therefore structural phase are monitored and simulated. The observed time evolution of the ion temperature is compared to a theoretical model for ion-ion heating allowing a direct measurement of the Coulomb logarithm in a linear Paul trap. This result permits a simple, yet accurate, analytical description of ion cloud thermodynamic properties, e.g. density, temperature, and structural phase, as well as suggests limits to and improvements for on-going trapped-ion quantum information efforts.