Direct observation of geometric phase in dynamics around a conical intersection

Conical intersections are ubiquitous in chemistry and physics, often governing processes such as light harvesting, vision, photocatalysis, and chemical reactivity. They act as funnels between electronic states of molecules, allowing rapid and efficient relaxation during chemical dynamics. In additio...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-08
Main Authors: Valahu, Christophe H, Olaya-Agudelo, Vanessa C, MacDonell, Ryan J, Navickas, Tomas, Rao, Arjun D, Millican, Maverick J, Pérez-Sánchez, Juan B, Yuen-Zhou, Joel, Biercuk, Michael J, Hempel, Cornelius, Ting Rei Tan, Kassal, Ivan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Dynamics
Electron states
Funnels
Interference
Intersections
Simulation
Simulators
Wave functions
Wave packets
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Conical intersections are ubiquitous in chemistry and physics, often governing processes such as light harvesting, vision, photocatalysis, and chemical reactivity. They act as funnels between electronic states of molecules, allowing rapid and efficient relaxation during chemical dynamics. In addition, when a reaction path encircles a conical intersection, the molecular wavefunction experiences a geometric phase, which can affect the outcome of the reaction through quantum-mechanical interference. Past experiments have measured indirect signatures of geometric phases in scattering patterns and spectroscopic observables, but there has been no direct observation of the underlying wavepacket interference. Here, we experimentally observe geometric-phase interference in the dynamics of a wavepacket travelling around an engineered conical intersection in a programmable trapped-ion quantum simulator. To achieve this, we develop a technique to reconstruct the two-dimensional wavepacket densities of a trapped ion. Experiments agree with the theoretical model, demonstrating the ability of analog quantum simulators -- such as those realised using trapped ions -- to accurately describe nuclear quantum effects.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2211.07320