We experimentally study the real-time susceptibility of trapped-ion quantum systems to small doses of ionizing radiation. We expose an ion-trap apparatus to a variety of α, β, and γ sources and measure the resulting changes in trapped-ion qubit lifetimes, coherence times, gate fidelities, and motional heating rates. We found no quantifiable degradation of ion trap performance in the presence of low-dose radiation sources for any of the measurements performed. This finding is encouraging for the long-term prospects of using ion-based quantum information systems in extreme environments, indicating that much larger doses may be required to induce errors in trapped-ion quantum processors.

我们通过实验研究了俘获离子量子系统对小剂量电离辐射的实时敏感性。我们将离子阱装置暴露于各种α、β和γ源，并测量捕获离子量子位寿命、相干时间、栅极保真度和运动加热速率的变化。对于所进行的任何测量，我们发现在存在低剂量辐射源的情况下，离子阱性能没有可量化的下降。这一发现对于在极端环境中使用基于离子的量子信息系统的长期前景令人鼓舞，表明可能需要更大的剂量才能在俘获离子量子处理器中引起错误。