Engineering chiral spin interactions with Rydberg atoms

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to simulate chiral spin interactions, specifically the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, using Rydberg atom arrays with tunable anisotropic couplings, enabling exploration of topological spin textures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme to engineer and control chiral spin interactions in Rydberg atom systems, expanding quantum simulation capabilities.

Findings

The DMI vector components can be determined from first principles.

The DMI coupling can be tuned to be comparable to XXZ interactions.

The approach enables potential formation of topological spin textures.

Abstract

We propose to simulate the anisotropic and chiral Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction with Rydberg atom arrays. The DM Hamiltonian is engineered in a one-dimensional optical lattice or trap array with effective long-range Rydberg spins, interacting indirectly via a mobile mediator Rydberg atom. A host of XXZ and DM Hamiltonians can be simulated with out-of-phase sign periodic coupling strengths; for initial states in a stationary condensate, the DM interaction vanishes. This theory allows for determination of the DM interaction (DMI) vector components from first principles. The inherent anisotropy of the Rydberg-Rydberg interactions, facilitates the DMI coupling to be tuned so as to be comparable to the XXZ interaction. Our results make plausible the formation of non-trivial topological spin textures with Rydberg atom arrays.