Floquet Prethermal Phase Protected by U(1) Symmetry on a Superconducting Quantum Processor

TL;DR

This paper experimentally demonstrates a U(1) symmetry-protected prethermal phase in a superconducting quantum processor, showing robustness against perturbations and potential for discovering new quantum dynamical phases.

Contribution

It introduces the first experimental realization of a U(1) symmetry-protected prethermal phase using digital-analog quantum simulation on superconducting qubits.

Findings

Robustness of the prethermal phase against external perturbations

Stabilization of spin glass order parameter by spin interactions

Potential for discovering emergent quantum dynamical phases

Abstract

Periodically driven systems, or Floquet systems, exhibit many novel dynamics and interesting out-of-equilibrium phases of matter. Those phases arising with the quantum systems' symmetries, such as global $U(1)$ symmetry, can even show dynamical stability with symmetry-protection. Here we experimentally demonstrate a $U(1)$ symmetry-protected prethermal phase, via performing a digital-analog quantum simulation on a superconducting quantum processor. The dynamical stability of this phase is revealed by its robustness against external perturbations. We also find that the spin glass order parameter in this phase is stabilized by the interaction between the spins. Our work reveals a promising prospect in discovering emergent quantum dynamical phases with digital-analog quantum simulators.