Probing many-body dynamics on a 51-atom quantum simulator
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.