Ion-trap analog of particle creation in cosmology

We consider the transversal modes of ions in a linear radio-frequency trap where we control the time-dependent axial confinement to show that we can excite quanta of motion via a two-mode squeezing process. This effect is analogous to phenomena predicted to occur in the early universe, in general out of reach for experimental investigation. As a substantial advantage of this proposal in comparison to previous ones we propose to exploit the radial and axial modes simultaneously to permit experimental access of these effects based on state-of-the-art technology. In addition, we propose to create and explore entanglement between the two ions.