1. Continuous Symmetry Breaking in a Trapped-Ion Spin Chain
- Author
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Christopher Monroe, Lei Feng, Or Katz, Casey Haack, Mohammad Maghrebi, Alexey Gorshkov, Zhexuan Gong, and Marko Cetina
- Subjects
Quantum Physics ,Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons ,Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) ,Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) ,Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Condensed Matter - Quantum Gases ,Quantum Physics (quant-ph) ,Condensed Matter - Statistical Mechanics - Abstract
One-dimensional systems exhibiting a continuous symmetry can host quantum phases of matter with true long-range order only in the presence of sufficiently long-range interactions. In most physical systems, however, the interactions are short-ranged, hindering the emergence of such phases in one dimension. Here we use a one-dimensional trapped-ion quantum simulator to prepare states with long-range spin order that extends over the system size of up to $23$ spins and is characteristic of the continuous symmetry-breaking phase of matter. Our preparation relies on simultaneous control over an array of tightly focused individual-addressing laser beams, generating long-range spin-spin interactions. We also observe a disordered phase with frustrated correlations. We further study the phases at different ranges of interaction and the out-of-equilibrium response to symmetry-breaking perturbations. This work opens an avenue to study new quantum phases and out-of-equilibrium dynamics in low-dimensional systems.
- Published
- 2022
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