No Arabic abstract
Dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) extend the concept of phase transitions and thus universality to the non-equilibrium regime. In this letter, we investigate DQPTs in a string of ions simulating interacting transverse-field Ising models. We observe non-equilibrium dynamics induced by a quantum quench and show for strings of up to 10 ions the direct detection of DQPTs by measuring a quantity that becomes non-analytic in time in the thermodynamic limit. Moreover, we provide a link between DQPTs and the dynamics of other relevant quantities such as the magnetization, and we establish a connection between DQPTs and entanglement production.
A quantum simulator is a restricted class of quantum computer that controls the interactions between quantum bits in a way that can be mapped to certain difficult quantum many-body problems. As more control is exerted over larger numbers of qubits, the simulator can tackle a wider range of problems, with the ultimate limit being a universal quantum computer that can solve general classes of hard problems. We use a quantum simulator composed of up to 53 qubits to study a non-equilibrium phase transition in the transverse field Ising model of magnetism, in a regime where conventional statistical mechanics does not apply. The qubits are represented by trapped ion spins that can be prepared in a variety of initial pure states. We apply a global long-range Ising interaction with controllable strength and range, and measure each individual qubit with near 99% efficiency. This allows the single-shot measurement of arbitrary many-body correlations for the direct probing of the dynamical phase transition and the uncovering of computationally intractable features that rely on the long-range interactions and high connectivity between the qubits.
A discrete time crystal (DTC) is a robust phase of driven systems that breaks the discrete time translation symmetry of the driving Hamiltonian. Recent experiments have observed DTC signatures in two distinct systems. Here we show nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) observations of DTC signatures in a third, strikingly different system: an ordered spatial crystal. We use a novel DTC echo experiment to probe the coherence of the driven system. Finally, we show that interactions during the pulse of the DTC sequence contribute to the decay of the signal, complicating attempts to measure the intrinsic lifetime of the DTC.
Phase transitions have recently been formulated in the time domain of quantum many-body systems, a phenomenon dubbed dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs), whose phenomenology is often divided in two types. One refers to distinct phases according to long-time averaged order parameters, while the other is focused on the non-analytical behavior emerging in the rate function of the Loschmidt echo. Here we show that such DQPTs can be found in systems with few degrees of freedom, i.e. they can take place without resorting to the traditional thermodynamic limit. We illustrate this by showing the existence of the two types of DQPTs in a quantum Rabi model -- a system involving a spin-$frac{1}{2}$ and a bosonic mode. The dynamical criticality appears in the limit of an infinitely large ratio of the spin frequency with respect to the bosonic one. We determine its dynamical phase diagram and study the long-time averaged order parameters, whose semiclassical approximation yields a jump at the transition point. We find the critical times at which the rate function becomes non-analytical, showing its associated critical exponent as well as the corrections introduced by a finite frequency ratio. Our results open the door for the study of DQPTs without the need to scale up the number of components, thus allowing for their investigation in well controllable systems.
We investigate dynamical quantum phase transitions in disordered quantum many-body models that can support many-body localized phases. Employing $l$-bits formalism, we lay out the conditions for which singularities indicative of the transitions appear in the context of many-body localization. Using the combination of the mapping onto $l$-bits and exact diagonalization results, we explicitly demonstrate the presence of these singularities for a candidate model that features many-body localization. Our work paves the way for understanding dynamical quantum phase transitions in the context of many-body localization, and elucidating whether different phases of the latter can be detected from analyzing the former. The results presented are experimentally accessible with state-of-the-art ultracold-atom and ion-trap setups.
The key to explaining a wide range of quantum phenomena is understanding how entanglement propagates around many-body systems. Furthermore, the controlled distribution of entanglement is of fundamental importance for quantum communication and computation. In many situations, quasiparticles are the carriers of information around a quantum system and are expected to distribute entanglement in a fashion determined by the system interactions. Here we report on the observation of magnon quasiparticle dynamics in a one-dimensional many-body quantum system of trapped ions representing an Ising spin model. Using the ability to tune the effective interaction range, and to prepare and measure the quantum state at the individual particle level, we observe new quasiparticle phenomena. For the first time, we reveal the entanglement distributed by quasiparticles around a many-body system. Second, for long-range interactions we observe the divergence of quasiparticle velocity and breakdown of the light-cone picture that is valid for short-range interactions. Our results will allow experimental studies of a wide range of phenomena, such as quantum transport, thermalisation, localisation and entanglement growth, and represent a first step towards a new quantum-optical regime with on-demand quasiparticles with tunable non-linear interactions.