Composite Spin Approach to the Blockade Effect in Rydberg Atom Arrays

TL;DR

This paper introduces a composite spin model that unifies the description of Rydberg blockade effects, ground states, and scar states in Rydberg atom arrays, simplifying analysis across different blockade radii.

Contribution

The authors propose a novel composite spin representation that automatically incorporates the Rydberg blockade constraint and applies it to various array configurations.

Findings

Composite spins accurately describe ground states and excitations.

The model captures quantum phase transitions driven by detuning.

Universal description applies across different blockade radii.

Abstract

The Rydberg blockade induces strongly correlated many-body effects in Rydberg atom arrays, including rich ground-state phases and many-body scar states in the excitation spectrum. In this letter, we propose a composite spin representation that can provide a unified description for major features in this system. The composite spin combines Rydberg excitation and the auxiliary fermions, which are introduced to implement the Rydberg blockade constraint automatically. First, we focus on the PXP model describing one-dimensional arrays with the Rydberg blocking radius being a lattice spacing. Using composite spins, the ground state is simply a ferromagnetic product state of composite spins, and the magnon excitations of these composite spins can accurately describe the many-body scar states and signal the quantum phase transition driven by detuning. Then, we show that Rydberg atom arrays with different blocking radii can share a universal description of the composite spin representation, and the difference between different blockade radii can be absorbed in the formation of composite spins.