Stark many-body localization on a superconducting quantum processor

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates Stark many-body localization in a 32-qubit superconducting quantum processor, revealing non-ergodic dynamics and slow entanglement growth, and surpassing classical simulation capabilities.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental observation of Stark MBL in a large-scale superconducting quantum device, advancing quantum simulation of out-of-equilibrium many-body systems.

Findings

Observation of Stark MBL phenomenology in a superconducting qubit array.

Real-time dynamics surpass classical simulation sizes, indicating quantum advantage.

Evidence of non-ergodic behavior and slow entanglement growth in the system.

Abstract

Quantum emulators, owing to their large degree of tunability and control, allow the observation of fine aspects of closed quantum many-body systems, as either the regime where thermalization takes place or when it is halted by the presence of disorder. The latter, dubbed many-body localization (MBL) phenomenon, describes the non-ergodic behavior that is dynamically identified by the preservation of local information and slow entanglement growth. Here, we provide a precise observation of this same phenomenology in the case the onsite energy landscape is not disordered, but rather linearly varied, emulating the Stark MBL. To this end, we construct a quantum device composed of thirty-two superconducting qubits, faithfully reproducing the relaxation dynamics of a non-integrable spin model. Our results describe the real-time evolution at sizes that surpass what is currently attainable by exact simulations in classical computers, signaling the onset of quantum advantage, thus bridging the way for quantum computation as a resource for solving out-of-equilibrium many-body problems.