Mobile bound states of Rydberg excitations in a lattice

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how Rydberg-dressed atomic arrays can simulate spin lattice models, revealing exotic bound states of magnons and enabling studies of quantum magnetism and non-equilibrium dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a method to realize tunable long-range hopping and strong interactions in Rydberg atom arrays, enabling the simulation of exotic magnon bound states.

Findings

Discovery of interaction-bound magnon states

Proposal of Rydberg-dressed atoms as a quantum simulation platform

Identification of combined resonant and non-resonant hopping mechanisms

Abstract

Spin lattice models play central role in the studies of quantum magnetism and non-equilibrium dynamics of spin excitations -- magnons. We show that a spin lattice with strong nearest-neighbor interactions and tunable long-range hopping of excitations can be realized by a regular array of laser driven atoms, with an excited Rydberg state representing the spin-up state and a Rydberg-dressed ground state corresponding to the spin-down state. We find exotic interaction-bound states of magnons that propagate in the lattice via the combination of resonant two-site hopping and non-resonant second-order hopping processes. Arrays of trapped Rydberg-dressed atoms can thus serve as a flexible platform to simulate and study fundamental few-body dynamics in spin lattices.