Realization of a doped quantum antiferromagnet with dipolar tunnelings in a Rydberg tweezer array

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the quantum simulation of a doped antiferromagnetic system using Rydberg tweezer arrays, revealing new dynamical phenomena and extending the capabilities of quantum simulators beyond traditional spin models.

Contribution

It introduces a tunable bosonic $t$-$J$-$V$ model with NNN tunneling in a Rydberg platform, enabling exploration of complex strongly-correlated electron phenomena.

Findings

Observation of dynamical phase separation between holes and spins.

Formation of repulsively bound hole pairs in various spin backgrounds.

Control of pair dynamics depending on the sign of NNN tunneling $t'$.

Abstract

Doping an antiferromagnetic Mott insulator is central to our understanding of a variety of phenomena in strongly-correlated electrons, including high-temperature superconductors. To describe the competition between tunneling $t$ of hole dopants and antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin interactions $J$, theoretical and numerical studies often focus on the paradigmatic $t$-$J$ model, and the direct analog quantum simulation of this model in the relevant regime of high-particle density has long been sought. Here, we realize a doped quantum antiferromagnet with next-nearest neighbour (NNN) tunnelings $t'$ and hard-core bosonic holes using a Rydberg tweezer platform. We utilize coherent dynamics between three Rydberg levels, encoding spins and holes, to implement a tunable bosonic $t$-$J$-$V$ model allowing us to study previously inaccessible parameter regimes. We observe dynamical phase separation between hole and spin domains for $|t/J|\ll 1$, and demonstrate the formation of repulsively bound hole pairs in a variety of spin backgrounds. The interference between NNN tunnelings $t'$ and perturbative pair tunneling gives rise to light and heavy pairs depending on the sign of $t$. Using the single-site control allows us to study the dynamics of a single hole in 2D square lattice (anti)ferromagnets. The model we implement extends the toolbox of Rydberg tweezer experiments beyond spin-1/2 models to a larger class of $t$-$J$ and spin-$1$ models.