  We present a nonlinear decoherence model which models decoherence effect
caused by various decohereing sources in a quantum system through a nonlinear
coupling between the system and its environment, and apply it to investigating
decoherence in nonclassical motional states of a single trapped ion. We obtain
an exactly analytic solution of the model and find very good agreement with
experimental results for the population decay rate of a single trapped ion
observed in the NIST experiments by Meekhof and coworkers (D. M. Meekhof, {\it
et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 76}, 1796 (1996)).
