Kibble-Zurek exponent and chiral transition of the period-4 phase of Rydberg chains.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33462209.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-20641-y and PMC identifier 7814058.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Chains of Rydberg atoms have emerged as an amazing playground to study quantum physics in 1D. Playing with inter-atomic distances and laser detuning, one can in particular explore the commensurate-incommensurate transition out of density waves through the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, and the possible presence of a chiral transition with dynamical exponent z > 1. Here, we address this problem theoretically with effective blockade models where the short-distance repulsions are replaced by a constraint of no double occupancy. For the period-4 phase, we show that there is an Ashkin-Teller transition point with exponent ν = 0.78 surrounded by a direct chiral transition with a dynamical exponent z = 1.11 and a Kibble-Zurek exponent μ = 0.41. For Rydberg atoms with a van der Waals potential, we suggest that the experimental value μ = 0.25 is due to a chiral transition with z ≃ 1.9 and ν ≃ 0.47 surrounding an Ashkin-Teller transition close to the 4-state Potts universality.