Floating Phases in One-Dimensional Rydberg Ising Chains

TL;DR

This paper maps the phase diagram of a one-dimensional Rydberg atom chain, revealing a previously unreported floating phase that is neither locked to the lattice nor disordered, using advanced numerical methods.

Contribution

It identifies and characterizes the floating phase in Rydberg chains, a phase predicted theoretically but not previously observed experimentally.

Findings

Discovery of the floating phase in Rydberg chains

Characterization of phase boundaries using tensor network techniques

Potential for experimental realization with current quantum simulators

Abstract

We report on the quantitative ground state phase diagram of a van der Waals interacting chain of Rydberg atoms. These systems are known to host crystalline phases locked to the underlying lattice as well as a gapped, disordered phase. We locate and characterize a third type of phase, the so called floating phase, which can be seen as a one-dimensional 'crystalline' phase which is not locked to the lattice. These phases have been theoretically predicted to exist in the phase diagram, but were not reported so far. Our results have been obtained using state-of-the-art numerical tensor network techniques and pave the way for the experimental exploration of floating phases with existing Rydberg quantum simulators.