Fig. 2: Trapped-ion quantum simulation of a two-mode LVCM with engineered reservoirs.

a Experimental setup for studying open-system LVCM dynamics with two vibrational modes using a ¹⁷¹Yb⁺ -¹⁷²Yb⁺ ion chain, whose motional degrees of freedom are shared (represented by the connecting spring). Insets: simplified level schemes for ¹⁷¹Yb⁺ and ¹⁷²Yb⁺ qubits. Stimulated Raman transitions on the ¹⁷¹Yb⁺ ground-state qubit with 355 nm beams (purple) are used to engineer the Hamiltonian in Eq. (1). The optical qubit of ¹⁷²Yb⁺ is addressed with a 435.5 nm beam (light blue) and a 935 nm repumper beam (red line in the ¹⁷²Yb⁺ inset) for sympathetic cooling. b Experimental sequence used to measure the time-resolved evolution of the excitation at the donor electronic site (see “Methods” for details).