Probing many-body dynamics on a 51-atom quantum simulator
Hannes Bernien, Sylvain Schwartz, Alexander Keesling, Harry Levine, Ahmed Omran, Hannes Pichler, Soonwon Choi, Alexander S. Zibrov, Manuel Endres, Markus Greiner, Vladan Vuletic, Mikhail D. Lukin
Summary
The authors built a programmable quantum simulator using up to 51 individually trapped neutral atoms coupled to Rydberg states via optical tweezers. By tuning interactions they probed quantum many-body dynamics in a regime inaccessible to classical computation, observing the emergence of ordered antiferromagnetic phases and unexpectedly persistent, slowly relaxing oscillations after a quench. These long-lived coherent revivals later became understood as a signature of quantum many-body scars.
Key findings
- Demonstrated a controllable 51-atom Rydberg quantum simulator using optical tweezer arrays
- Observed transitions into spatially ordered (e.g. antiferromagnetic) states as interactions were tuned
- Found anomalously long-lived coherent oscillations after a quantum quench, hinting at non-thermalizing dynamics
Subjects & keywords
Cite this paper
Hannes Bernien, Sylvain Schwartz, Alexander Keesling, Harry Levine, Ahmed Omran, Hannes Pichler, Soonwon Choi, Alexander S. Zibrov, Manuel Endres, Markus Greiner, Vladan Vuletic, & Mikhail D. Lukin (2017). Probing many-body dynamics on a 51-atom quantum simulator. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24622
@article{bernien2017probing,
author = {Hannes Bernien and Sylvain Schwartz and Alexander Keesling and Harry Levine and Ahmed Omran and Hannes Pichler and Soonwon Choi and Alexander S. Zibrov and Manuel Endres and Markus Greiner and Vladan Vuletic and Mikhail D. Lukin},
title = {Probing many-body dynamics on a 51-atom quantum simulator},
journal = {Nature},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1038/nature24622},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24622}
}