- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Probing high-frequency gravitational waves with entangled vibrational qubits in linear Paul traps

Ryoto Takai

PDF

Phys. Rev. D 113, 082002 – Published 13 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vm7k-snv7

Abstract

This work investigates the use of linear Paul traps as quantum sensors for detecting megahertz gravitational waves. Single-ion configurations exploit graviton-photon conversion in the presence of external magnetic fields, while two-ion systems use relative-motion excitations, which do not require magnets, to distinguish gravitational waves from axion dark matter. Furthermore, we show that entanglement of N vibrational qubits enhances the signal probability by a factor of N2, improving sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (27)

  1. C. Caprini and D. G. Figueroa, Cosmological backgrounds of gravitational waves, Classical Quantum Gravity 35, 163001 (2018).
  2. T.-H. Yeh, J. Shelton, K. A. Olive, and B. D. Fields, Probing physics beyond the standard model: Limits from BBN and the CMB independently and combined, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2022) 046.
  3. G. Franciolini, A. Maharana, and F. Muia, Hunt for light primordial black hole dark matter with ultrahigh-frequency gravitational waves, Phys. Rev. D 106, 103520 (2022).
  4. G. F. Giudice, M. McCullough, and A. Urbano, Hunting for dark particles with gravitational waves, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2016) 001.
  5. R. Brito, V. Cardoso, and P. Pani, Superradiance: New frontiers in black hole physics, Lect. Notes Phys. 906, 1 (2015).
  6. M. Goryachev and M. E. Tobar, Gravitational wave detection with high frequency phonon trapping acoustic cavities, Phys. Rev. D 90, 102005 (2014); 108, 129901(E) (2023).
  7. A. S. Chou, R. Gustafson, C. Hogan, B. Kamai, O. Kwon, R. Lanza et al., MHz gravitational wave constraints with decameter Michelson interferometers, Phys. Rev. D 95, 063002 (2017).
  8. N. Aggarwal, G. P. Winstone, M. Teo, M. Baryakhtar, S. L. Larson, V. Kalogera, and A. A. Geraci, Searching for new physics with a levitated-sensor-based gravitational-wave detector, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 111101 (2022).
  9. V. Domcke, S. A. R. Ellis, and N. L. Rodd, Magnets are weber bar gravitational wave detectors, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 231401 (2025).
  10. A. Patra, L. Aiello, A. Ejlli, W. L. Griffiths, A. L. James, N. Kuntimaddi et al., Broadband limits on stochastic length fluctuations from a pair of table-top interferometers, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 101402 (2025).
  11. N. Aggarwal, O. D. Aguiar, D. Blas, A. Bauswein, G. Cella, S. Clesse et al., Challenges and opportunities of gravitational-wave searches above 10 kHz, Living Rev. Relativity 28, 10 (2025).
  12. T. D. Ladd, F. Jelezko, R. Laflamme, Y. Nakamura, C. Monroe, and J. L. O’Brien, Quantum computers, Nature (London) 464, 45 (2010).
  13. C. L. Degen, F. Reinhard, and P. Cappellaro, Quantum sensing, Rev. Mod. Phys. 89, 035002 (2017).
  14. A. Ito, R. Kitano, W. Nakano, and R. Takai, Quantum entanglement of ions for light dark matter detection, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2024) 124.
  15. C. D. Bruzewicz, J. Chiaverini, R. McConnell, and J. M. Sage, Trapped-ion quantum computing: Progress and challenges, Appl. Phys. Rev. 6, 021314 (2019).
  16. J. I. Cirac and P. Zoller, Quantum computations with cold trapped ions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4091 (1995).
  17. D. Walls and G. Milburn, Quantum Optics, Springer Study Edition (Springer, New York, 1994), 10.1007/978-3-642-79504-6.
  18. W. Ratzinger, S. Schenk, and P. Schwaller, A coordinate-independent formalism for detecting high-frequency gravitational waves, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2024) 195.
  19. I. Pogorelov, T. Feldker, C. D. Marciniak, L. Postler, G. Jacob, O. Krieglsteiner et al., Compact ion-trap quantum computing demonstrator, PRX Quantum 2, 020343 (2021).
  20. F. Bernardini, A. Chakraborty, and C. R. Ordóñez, Quantum computing with trapped ions: A beginner’s guide, Eur. J. Phys. 45, 013001 (2024).
  21. M. Brownnutt, M. Kumph, P. Rabl, and R. Blatt, Ion-trap measurements of electric-field noise near surfaces, Rev. Mod. Phys. 87, 1419 (2015).
  22. D. Kielpinski, C. Monroe, and D. J. Wineland, Architecture for a large-scale ion-trap quantum computer, Nature (London) 417, 709 (2002).
  23. R. Lechner, C. Maier, C. Hempel, P. Jurcevic, B. P. Lanyon, T. Monz, M. Brownnutt, R. Blatt, and C. F. Roos, Electromagnetically-induced-transparency ground-state cooling of long ion strings, Phys. Rev. A 93, 053401 (2016).
  24. A. Ito, Inertial and gravitational effects on a geonium atom, Classical Quantum Gravity 38, 195015 (2021).
  25. B. E. King, C. S. Wood, C. J. Myatt, Q. A. Turchette, D. Leibfried, W. M. Itano, C. Monroe, and D. J. Wineland, Cooling the collective motion of trapped ions to initialize a quantum register, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1525 (1998).
  26. T. P. Harty, D. T. C. Allcock, C. J. Ballance, L. Guidoni, H. A. Janacek, N. M. Linke, D.  N. Stacey, and D.  M. Lucas, High-fidelity preparation, gates, memory, and readout of a trapped-ion quantum bit, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 220501 (2014).
  27. S. A. Moses et al., A race-track trapped-ion quantum processor, Phys. Rev. X 13, 041052 (2023).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 113, 082002– Published 13 April, 2026
  • Received 28 September 2025
  • Accepted 25 March 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation