Time-reversal in a dipolar quantum many-body spin system

Abstract

Time reversal in a macroscopic system is contradicting daily experience. It is practically impossible to restore a shattered cup to its original state by just time reversing the microscopic dynamics that led to its breakage. Yet, with the precise control capabilities provided by modern quantum technology, the unitary evolution of a quantum system can be reversed in time. Here, we implement a time-reversal protocol in a dipolar interacting, isolated many-body spin system represented by Rydberg states in an atomic gas. By changing the states encoding the spin, we flip the sign of the interaction Hamiltonian, and demonstrate the reversal of the relaxation dynamics of the magnetization by letting a demagnetized many-body state evolve back-in-time into a magnetized state. We elucidate the role of atomic motion using the concept of a Loschmidt echo. Finally, by combining the approach with Floquet engineering, we demonstrate time reversal for a large family of spin models with different symmetries. Our method of state transfer is applicable across a wide range of quantum simulation platforms and has applications far beyond quantum many-body physics, reaching from quantum-enhanced sensing to quantum information scrambling.

References in corpus (15)

• Probing many-body dynamics on a 51-atom quantum simulator
• Many-Body Physics with Individually-Controlled Rydberg Atoms
• Observation of Time-Crystalline Eigenstate Order on a Quantum Processor
• Quantum-enhanced sensing of displacements and electric fields with large trapped-ion crystals
• Continuous Symmetry Breaking in a Two-dimensional Rydberg Array
• Loschmidt Echo
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• Time-Reversal-Based Quantum Metrology with Many-Body Entangled States
• Probing quantum information propagation with out-of-time-ordered correlators
• Scalable spin squeezing in a dipolar Rydberg atom array
• Quantum Spin Dynamics of Mode-Squeezed Luttinger Liquids in Two-Component Atomic Gases
• Probing site-resolved correlations in a spin system of ultracold molecules
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• Antiferromagnetic bosonic $t$-$J$ models and their quantum simulation in tweezer arrays

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Two-axis twisting using Floquet-engineered XYZ spin models with polar molecules
• Quantum Mpemba effect from initial system-reservoir entanglement
• Diagnosing Quantum Many-body Chaos in Non-Hermitian Quantum Spin Chain via Krylov Complexity
• Error-resilient Reversal of Quantum Chaotic Dynamics Enabled by Scramblons
• Unravelling the Structures in the van der Waals Interactions of Alkali Rydberg Atoms
• Supersymmetry dynamics on Rydberg atom arrays
• Nonequilibrium Critical Scaling of a Squeezing Phase Transition