How quantum matter relaxes far from equilibrium is a central open problem in many-body physics, and one for which analog quantum simulators are well positioned to move from confirming theory to discovering new physics. Here, we use a two-dimensional Rydberg atom array of 256 qubits to map the relaxation landscape of the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model across its phase diagram. Beyond the expected rapid thermalization, we identify two further regimes. The first is a prethermal regime whose dynamics are governed by an effective XY model. The second, and most unexpected, is a crossover regime characterized by a slowdown in relaxation. This slowdown occurs precisely where state-of-the-art classical tensor-network methods lose control at late times, whereas the quantum simulation remains consistent across system sizes. These results establish Rydberg atom arrays as a platform for scientific discovery in nonequilibrium quantum many-body dynamics.
The transient regime of far-from-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics lacks the established organizing principles that universality and scaling provide in equilibrium. It is least understood for two-dimensional short-range interacting systems, where mean-field arguments are not expected to hold, controlled theoretica...
Fabio Bensch, Umberto Borla, Federico Balducci et al.· 1 citation
A quantum many-body system coupled to an environment relaxes to a nonequilibrium steady state that can sustain order with no equilibrium counterpart. Computing such steady states is harder than closed-system dynamics as the density matrix problem squares the Hilbert-space dimension, and no free energy selects the stead...
João C. Getelina, Andrew A. Cox, Md. Asaduzzaman et al.· 1 citation
Mechanical resonators ultrastrongly coupled to quantum two-level systems provide a promising route towards mechanical qubits by introducing significant anharmonicity to the mechanical modes, particularly in the slow-oscillator regime. Although the resulting hybrid system is well described by the quantum Rabi model, a c...
The failure of quantum thermalization due to Many-Body Localization (MBL) has evolved from a theoretical concept in spin chains to an experimental reality in synthetic quantum platforms, most notably superconducting circuits based on transmon qubits. Despite its significance, the MBL transition has been studied primari...
Thiago R. Girão Souza, A. Saguia, A. C. Santos et al.· 0 citations
Echoed Conditional Displacement (ECD) gates constitute a fundamental building block for quantum control of harmonic oscillator modes. However, bit-flips of the auxiliary qubit remain a dominant error mechanism for this kind of bosonic control. In this work, we present a numerical case study of a bit-flip protected flux...
Anaida Ali, Shantanu R. Jha, Shoumik Chowdhury et al.· 1 citation
