Simulating conical intersections with trapped ions

Abstract

Conical intersections are common in molecular physics and photochemistry, and are often invoked to explain observed reaction products. A conical intersection can occur when an excited electronic potential energy surface intersects with the ground electronic potential energy surface in the coordinate space of the nuclear positions. Theory predicts that the conical intersection will result in a geometric phase for a wavepacket on the ground potential energy surface. Although conical intersections have been observed experimentally, the geometric phase has not been observed in a molecular system. Here we use a trapped atomic ion system to perform a quantum simulation of a conical intersection. The internal state of a trapped atomic ion serves as the electronic state and the motion of the atomic nuclei are encoded into the normal modes of motion of the ions. The simulated electronic potential is constructed by applying state-dependent forces to the ion with a near-resonant laser. We experimentally observe the geometric phase on the ground-state surface using adiabatic state preparation followed by motional state measurement. Our experiment shows the advantage of combining spin and motion degrees of freedom in a quantum simulator.