  We propose a method of manipulating selectively the symmetric Dicke subspace
in the internal degrees of freedom of N trapped ions. We show that the direct
access to ionic-motional subspaces, based on a suitable tuning of
motion-dependent AC Stark shifts, induces a two-level dynamics involving
previously selected ionic Dicke states. In this manner, it is possible to
produce, sequentially and unitarily, ionic Dicke states with increasing
excitation number. Moreover, we propose a probabilistic technique to produce
directly any ionic Dicke state assuming suitable initial conditions.
