Bilayers of Rydberg atoms as a quantum simulator for unconventional superconductors

TL;DR

This paper proposes using bilayers of Rydberg atoms as a quantum simulator to emulate complex electron-phonon interactions in strongly correlated unconventional superconductors, providing a tunable and practical platform.

Contribution

It introduces a novel quantum simulation approach with Rydberg atom bilayers to model interactions relevant to unconventional superconductivity, supported by numerical comparisons.

Findings

The simulator can replicate key features of electron-phonon interactions.

Numerical results show good analogy with condensed matter systems.

A practical implementation method using painted spot potentials is proposed.

Abstract

In condensed matter, it is often difficult to untangle the effects of competing interactions, and this is especially problematic for superconductors. Quantum simulators may help: here we show how exploiting the properties of highly excited Rydberg states of cold fermionic atoms in a bilayer lattice can simulate electron-phonon interactions in the presence of strong correlation - a scenario found in many unconventional superconductors. We discuss the core features of the simulator, and use numerics to compare with condensed matter analogues. Finally, we illustrate how to achieve a practical, tunable implementation of the simulation using painted spot potentials.