Schr\"{o}dinger cat states of a macroscopic charged particle co-trapped with an ion

Abstract

We investigate the feasibility of observing matter-wave interference of a micron-sized charged particle by putting it into a quantum superposition of states with a distinguishable separation. In the proposed method, an atomic ion is confined in a linear Paul trap along with the massive charged particle so that we can make use of the extensive toolbox of experimental techniques developed to control quantum states of trapped ions, and to manipulate their motions with high fidelity operations. This approach provides a stringent test of the predictions of dynamical reduction models of delocalised quantum superpositions of a particle, reaching macroscopicities of up to $\mathcal{M}=17$.