Quantum control and entanglement engineering with cold trapped atoms

Neutral atoms offer many advantages for quantum computation, including excellent isolation from the decohering environment and the existence of proven laboratory techniques for atom trapping and quantum control. Currently the most mature trapping technology is offered by optical lattices, arrays of microtraps formed by the AC Stark shift in laser standing waves, which provide an excellent platform to develop qubit implementations and universal quantum logic gates. We discuss a series of experiments that demonstrate some of the basic laboratory tools required for quantum computation in this system, including accurate quantum state preparation, coherent control of mesoscopic quantum states, and complete quantum state reconstruction. Ultimately, quantum computing may require new types of programmable trap arrays that allow atoms to be individually manipulated and read out. We suggest a possible trap architecture for a scalable neutral atom quantum computer.