Reconstructing the vibrational state of a trapped ion
C. D’Helon, Gerard J Milburn · Physical Review A · 1996
We show that probe resonance fluorescence measurements on a single trapped ion at the node of a pulsed optical standing wave can be used to tomographically reconstruct the initial vibrational state of the ion. The Wigner function describing the density matrix of the initial vibrational state is determined by measuring the population inversion of the ion at the end of the standing-wave pulse over a range of free evolution times and pulse strengths.