Long-range transverse Ising model built with dipolar condensates in two-well arrays

TL;DR

This paper explores a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate setup that simulates a long-range transverse Ising model, revealing novel phase transitions, frustration effects, and localization phenomena relevant for quantum simulation.

Contribution

It introduces a new experimental realization of a long-range transverse Ising model with tunable interactions and studies complex phenomena like phase transitions, frustration, and localization within this system.

Findings

Observation of anomalous first-order phase transition.

Identification of nontrivial frustrated phases.

Demonstration of Anderson-like localization of imbalance perturbations.

Abstract

Dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates in an array of double-well potentials realize an effective transverse Ising model with peculiar inter-layer interactions, that may result under proper conditions in an anomalous first-order ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic phase transition, and nontrivial phases due to frustration. The considered setup as well allows the study of Kibble-Zurek defect formation, whose kink statistics follows that expected from the universality class of the mean-field transverse Ising model in 1D. Furthermore, random occupation of each layer of the stack leads to random effective Ising interactions and generation of local transverse fields, thus allowing the study of Anderson-like localization of imbalance perturbations in the two-well stack under controllable conditions.