Proposal for measurment of harmonic oscillator Berry phase in ion traps

Abstract

We propose a scheme for measuring the Berry phase in the vibrational degree of freedom of a trapped ion. Starting from the ion in a vibrational coherent state we show how to reverse the sign of the coherent state amplitude by using a purely geometric phase. This can then be detected through the internal degrees of freedom of the ion. Our method can be applied to preparation of Schrödinger cat states.

Replaced with revised version