Understanding anomalous heating rates in ion traps through in-situ plasma surface treatment

Advancing the understanding of trapped ion qubits systems is necessary to realize QIS applications. QIS applications, such as exceeding classical sensing limits and overcoming currently computationally impractical problems, have become a pressing concern for near future commercial competitiveness and national security. Sensors may rely on single qubits to probe their local environments while quantum computers may require billions of qubits. A key goal for enabling trapped ions to become a useful qubit system is to minimize residual heating of the ions that leads to decoherence. Many sources of ion heating are at least partially understood and mitigated, but there remains anomalous heating whose source is poorly understood. Plasma cleaning of ion traps has been carried out in an attempt to eliminate surface impurities and roughness as potential sources of the anomalous heating. However, systematic studies of plasma cleaning techniques and their impacts on heating rates has not been done. Here, we describe a proposed program of detailed, careful measurements of trapped ion heating rates in traps prepared using a variety of plasma cleaning methods in order to identify the optimal cleaning conditions and to help identify the cause of the anomalous heating.