Ergodicity Breaking Under Confinement in Cold-Atom Quantum Simulators

Abstract

The quantum simulation of gauge theories on synthetic quantum matter devices has gained a lot of traction in the last decade, making possible the observation of a range of exotic quantum many-body phenomena. In this work, we consider the spin-$1/2$ quantum link formulation of $1+1$D quantum electrodynamics with a topological $\theta$-angle, which can be used to tune a confinement-deconfinement transition. Exactly mapping this system onto a PXP model with mass and staggered magnetization terms, we show an intriguing interplay between confinement and the ergodicity-breaking paradigms of quantum many-body scarring and Hilbert-space fragmentation. We map out the rich dynamical phase diagram of this model, finding an ergodic phase at small values of the mass $\mu$ and confining potential $\chi$, an emergent integrable phase for large $\mu$, and a fragmented phase for large values of both parameters. We also show that the latter hosts resonances that lead to a vast array of effective models. We propose experimental probes of our findings, which can be directly accessed in current cold-atom setups.

28+12 pages, 16+8 figures

References in corpus (20)

• The density-matrix renormalization group in the age of matrix product states
• Probing many-body dynamics on a 51-atom quantum simulator
• Localization of interacting fermions at high temperature
• Emergent SU(2) dynamics and perfect quantum many-body scars
• Quantum Simulation for High Energy Physics
• Competing density-wave orders in a one-dimensional hard-boson model
• Many-body localization dynamics from gauge invariance
• Probing quantum scars and weak ergodicity-breaking through quantum complexity
• Implementing quantum electrodynamics with ultracold atomic systems
• Critical behavior of lattice Schwinger model with topological term at $\theta =\pi$ using Grassmann tensor renormalization group
• Weak Ergodicity Breaking in the Schwinger Model
• Prominent quantum many-body scars in a truncated Schwinger model
• Unified theory of local quantum many-body dynamics: Eigenoperator thermalization theorems
• Prethermalization in one-dimensional quantum many-body systems with confinement
• Tuning the Topological $\theta$-Angle in Cold-Atom Quantum Simulators of Gauge Theories
• Driving quantum many-body scars in the PXP model
• Thermal transport in a two-dimensional ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ spin liquid
• Quantum many-body scars in bipartite Rydberg arrays originate from hidden projector embedding
• Tunable Confinement-Deconfinement Transition in an Ultracold Atom Quantum Simulator
• Disorder-free localization with Stark gauge protection

Cited by in corpus (7)

• A Cold-Atom Particle Collider
• Hilbert space fragmentation at the origin of disorder-free localization in the lattice Schwinger model
• Diagnosing Quantum Many-body Chaos in Non-Hermitian Quantum Spin Chain via Krylov Complexity
• Uncovering Quantum Many-body Scars with Quantum Machine Learning
• Statistical Localization in a Rydberg Simulator of $U(1)$ Lattice Gauge Theory
• Mass-Assisted Local Deconfinement in a Confined ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ Lattice Gauge Theory
• Meson dynamics from locally exciting a particle-conserving $Z_2$ lattice gauge theory