Ion heating models in conventional and rotating rf-Electric quadrupole traps

For the past five decades the confinement of ions in linear rf-electric quadrupole (Paul) traps has been accomplished via an oscillatory saddle potential that, due to its time varying form, is known as the flapping potential. Recent work [1, 2] has introduced the possibility of using a rotating saddle potential to contain ions in linear Paul traps. Although both theoretical and experimental attention has been focused on the multi-ion dynamics in conventional (flapping potential) ion traps, only the single particle behaviour in the rotating configuration has been explored in any detail. In this work we present a computational study of the many particle dynamics for both traps. By sampling a large range of ion and trap parameters a detailed comparison between the thermal characteristics of ion samples both traps is made. The rotating and flapping trap heating rates are then compared with the instability heating theory of Harmon [3] and theoretical rf-heating rate calculations.