  In a recent experiment, Barreiro et al. demonstrated the fundamental building
blocks of an open-system quantum simulator with trapped ions [Nature 470, 486
(2011)]. Using up to five ions, single- and multi-qubit entangling gate
operations were combined with optical pumping in stroboscopic sequences. This
enabled the implementation of both coherent many-body dynamics as well as
dissipative processes by controlling the coupling of the system to an
artificial, suitably tailored environment. This engineering was illustrated by
the dissipative preparation of entangled two- and four-qubit states, the
simulation of coherent four-body spin interactions and the quantum
non-demolition measurement of a multi-qubit stabilizer operator. In the present
paper, we present the theoretical framework of this gate-based ("digital")
simulation approach for open-system dynamics with trapped ions. In addition, we
discuss how within this simulation approach minimal instances of spin models of
interest in the context of topological quantum computing and condensed matter
physics can be realized in state-of-the-art linear ion-trap quantum computing
architectures. We outline concrete simulation schemes for Kitaev's toric code
Hamiltonian and a recently suggested color code model. The presented simulation
protocols can be adapted to scalable and two-dimensional ion-trap
architectures, which are currently under development.

Quantum Physics