Dynamical preparation of quantum spin liquids in Rydberg atom arrays

TL;DR

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of recent Rydberg atom experiments demonstrating topological spin liquids, optimizing state preparation protocols, and describing the dynamics with tensor networks to confirm topological order emergence.

Contribution

It introduces an optimized quasi-adiabatic protocol for preparing topological states and develops a tensor network model to analyze the dynamics of Rydberg atom arrays.

Findings

State preparation time scales linearly with atom number.

Tensor network states accurately describe the non-equilibrium dynamics.

Topological order emerges in the prepared states.

Abstract

We theoretically analyze recent experiments [G. Semeghini et al., Science 374, 1242 (2021)] demonstrating the onset of a topological spin liquid using a programmable quantum simulator based on Rydberg atom arrays. In the experiment, robust signatures of topological order emerge in out-of-equilibrium states that are prepared using a quasi-adiabatic state preparation protocol. We show theoretically that the state preparation protocol can be optimized to target the fixed point of the topological phase -- the resonating valence bond (RVB) state of hard dimers -- in a time that scales linearly with the number of atoms. Moreover, we provide a two-parameter variational manifold of tensor network (TN) states that accurately describe the many-body dynamics of the preparation process. Using this approach we analyze the nature of the non-equilibrium state, establishing the emergence of topological order.