Quantum simulations of open molecular systems with trapped ions

The quantum dynamics of a molecular system are complicated to simulate due to the coupling between the system and the surrounding environment. The environment is often treated as harmonic oscillators coupled to the electronic states of the system. The trapped-ion simulators provide the opportunity of studying the effects of a quantum environment, as their native operations consist of controlling the coupling between spins and their quantized motional degrees of freedom. Moreover, dissipation of motion can be engineered by using ancilla ions, which enables us to simulate a wide range of phenomena, from a coherent, low-temperature regime to a dissipative, high-temperature regime. We explore trapped-ion simulations of molecular dynamics with a toy model and compare the results with classical simulations.