Simulating the spin-boson model with a controllable reservoir in an ion trap

The spin-boson model is a prototypical model for open quantum dynamics. Here we simulate the spin-boson model using a chain of trapped ions in which a spin is coupled to a structured reservoir of bosonic modes. We engineer the spectral density of the reservoir by adjusting the ion number, the target ion location, the laser detuning to the phonon sidebands, and the number of frequency components in the laser, and we observe their effects on the collapse and revival of the initially encoded information. Our work demonstrates that the ion trap is a powerful platform for simulating open quantum dynamics with complicated reservoir structures.