Sharp phase transitions in a small frustrated network of trapped ion spins

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a small, frustrated network of trapped ion spins can exhibit sharp quantum phase transitions, with their clarity increasing exponentially with system size, challenging the notion that large systems are necessary.

Contribution

It reveals that sharp quantum phase transitions can occur in small, frustrated ion spin networks due to exponential finite-size scaling, expanding understanding of quantum critical phenomena.

Findings

Sharp phase transitions scale exponentially with number of spins

Finite-size systems can exhibit sharp quantum phase transitions

Frustration leads to rich and observable phase behavior

Abstract

Sharp quantum phase transitions typically require a large system with many particles. Here we show that for a frustrated fully-connected Ising spin network represented by trapped atomic ions, the competition between different spin orders leads to rich phase transitions whose sharpness scales exponentially with the number of spins. This unusual finite-size scaling behavior opens up the possibility of observing sharp quantum phase transitions in a system of just a few trapped ion spins.