Fast quantum gates for cold trapped ions

We present an alternative scheme for the generation of a 2-qubit quantum gate interaction between laser-cooled trapped ions. The scheme is based on the AC Stark shift (lightshift) induced by laser light resonant with the ionic transition frequency. At {\it specific} laser intensities, the shift of the ionic levels allows the resonant excitation of transitions involving the exchange of motional quanta. We compare the performance of this scheme with respect to that of related ion-trap proposals and find that, for an experimental realisation using travelling-wave radiation and working in the Lamb-Dicke regime, an improvement of over an order of magnitude in the gate switching rate is possible.