%0 Journal Article %J Physical Review Letters %D 2010 %T Temperature driven structural phase transition for trapped ions and its experimental detection %A Zhe-Xuan Gong %A G. -D. Lin %A L. -M. Duan %X A Wigner crystal formed with trapped ion can undergo structural phase transition, which is determined only by the mechanical conditions on a classical level. Instead of this classical result, we show that through consideration of quantum and thermal fluctuation, a structural phase transition can be solely driven by change of the system's temperature. We determine a finite-temperature phase diagram for trapped ions using the renormalization group method and the path integral formalism, and propose an experimental scheme to observe the predicted temperature-driven structural phase transition, which is well within the reach of the current ion trap technology. %B Physical Review Letters %V 105 %8 2010/12/29 %G eng %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.0089v1 %N 26 %! Phys. Rev. Lett. %R 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.265703