# Experimental realization of a symmetry protected topological phase of interacting bosons with Rydberg atoms

## TL;DR

This paper reports the experimental creation of a symmetry protected topological phase of interacting bosons using Rydberg atoms in optical tweezers, demonstrating robust edge states and ground state degeneracy.

## Contribution

First experimental realization of a symmetry protected topological phase of interacting bosons with Rydberg atom arrays.

## Key findings

- Observation of robust ground state degeneracy
- Detection of protected edge states
- Implementation of topological phase in artificial matter

## Abstract

The concept of topological phases is a powerful framework to characterize ground states of quantum many-body systems that goes beyond the paradigm of symmetry breaking. While a few topological phases appear in condensed matter systems, a current challenge is the implementation and study of such quantum many-body ground states in artificial matter. Here, we report the experimental realization of a symmetry protected topological phase of interacting bosons in a one-dimensional lattice, and demonstrate a robust ground state degeneracy attributed to protected edge states. The setup is based on atoms trapped in an array of optical tweezers and excited into Rydberg levels, which gives rise to hard-core bosons with an effective hopping by dipolar exchange interaction.