Internal-state dephasing of trapped ions

The effect of random fields on the internal dynamics of trapped ions is studied analytically. General characteristics of the dependence of the dephasing on the noise statistics are identified: the form of the initial decay of the coherences is determined by the probability distribution; effects of noise color, in particular, collapses and revivals rooted in spectral concentration of the fluctuations, are apparent in a transient regime; at large times, exponential decay sets in for widely different noise properties. The study is particularized to magnetic-field fluctuations: features distinctive of the linear and quadratic Zeeman shifts are traced. The scaling of the dephasing with the number of ions is analyzed; the implications for the realization of decoherence-free states are discussed.