Continuous Symmetry Breaking in a Trapped-Ion Spin Chain
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 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.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2211.01275,
title = {Continuous Symmetry Breaking in a Trapped-Ion Spin Chain},
author = {Lei Feng and Or Katz and Casey Haack and Mohammad Maghrebi and Alexey V. Gorshkov and Zhexuan Gong and Marko Cetina and Christopher Monroe},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.01275},
year = {2023}
}