Thermalization dynamics of a gauge theory on a quantum simulator
Abstract
Gauge theories form the foundation of modern physics, with applications ranging from elementary particle physics and early-universe cosmology to condensed matter systems. We perform quantum simulations of the unitary dynamics of a U(1) symmetric gauge field theory and demonstrate emergent irreversible behavior. The highly constrained gauge theory dynamics is encoded in a one-dimensional Bose--Hubbard simulator, which couples fermionic matter fields through dynamical gauge fields. We investigate global quantum quenches and the equilibration to a steady state well approximated by a thermal ensemble. Our work may enable the investigation of elusive phenomena, such as Schwinger pair production and string-breaking, and paves the way for simulating more complex higher-dimensional gauge theories on quantum synthetic matter devices.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2107.13563,
title = {Thermalization dynamics of a gauge theory on a quantum simulator},
author = {Zhao-Yu Zhou and Guo-Xian Su and Jad C. Halimeh and Robert Ott and Hui Sun and Philipp Hauke and Bing Yang and Zhen-Sheng Yuan and Jürgen Berges and Jian-Wei Pan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.13563},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
Accepted version, 6+6 pages, 4+5 figures