DECOHERENCE IN ION TRAPS DUE TO LASER INTENSITY AND PHASE FLUCTUATIONS

We consider one source of decoherence for a single trapped ion due to intensity and phase fluctuations in the exciting laser pulses. For sim plicity we assume that the stochastic processes involved are white noi se processes, which enables us to give a simple master equation descri ption of this source of decoherence. This master equation is averaged over the noise, and is sufficient to describe the results of experimen ts that probe the oscillations in the electronic populations as energy is exchanged between the internal and electronic motion. Our results are in good qualitative agreement with recent experiments and predict that the decoherence rate will depend on vibrational quantum number in different ways depending on which vibrational excitation sideband is used.