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Probing False Vacuum Decay and Bubble Nucleation in a Rydberg Atom Array
Authors:
Yu-Xin Chao,
Peiyun Ge,
Zhen-Xing Hua,
Chen Jia,
Xiao Wang,
Xinhui Liang,
Zongpei Yue,
Rong Lu,
Meng Khoon Tey,
Xiao Wang,
Li You
Abstract:
In quantum field theory (QFT), the "vacuum" is not just empty space but the lowest-energy state of a quantum field. If the energy landscape has multiple local minima, the local ground states are the false vacuum (FV) which can tunnel towards the global ground state (true vacuum, TV). This process exhibits signature akin to classical supercooled gas transitions and many-body tunneling in discrete q…
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In quantum field theory (QFT), the "vacuum" is not just empty space but the lowest-energy state of a quantum field. If the energy landscape has multiple local minima, the local ground states are the false vacuum (FV) which can tunnel towards the global ground state (true vacuum, TV). This process exhibits signature akin to classical supercooled gas transitions and many-body tunneling in discrete quantum systems. Here, we study the FV decay and bubble nucleation in a Rydberg atom ring. The $1/r^6$ van-der-Waals interactions and individual-site addressability allow us to explore physics beyond the standard Ising model. We observe that the FV decay rate decreases exponentially with the inverse of the symmetry-breaking field, directly mirroring QFT predictions. Moreover, we demonstrate that even minor deviations from the ideal metastable state can cause a stark departure from this universal scaling law. Extending beyond short-time decay dynamics, we also examine resonant bubble nucleation, a feature distinctive to systems with discrete energy spectra. Our findings and methods open avenues for future studies of many-body tunneling in higher dimensions or more complex geometries.
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Submitted 27 March, 2026; v1 submitted 4 December, 2025;
originally announced December 2025.
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Observation of average topological phase in disordered Rydberg atom array
Authors:
Zongpei Yue,
Yu-Feng Mao,
Xinhui Liang,
Zhen-Xing Hua,
Peiyun Ge,
Yu-Xin Chao,
Kai Li,
Chen Jia,
Meng Khoon Tey,
Yong Xu,
Li You
Abstract:
Topological phases have been extensively studied over the past two decades, primarily in quantum pure states, where they are protected by exact symmetries. Recently, numerous studies have theoretically demonstrated the existence of average symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases in mixed quantum states, which naturally arise in real systems due to decoherence or disorder. Despite extensive exp…
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Topological phases have been extensively studied over the past two decades, primarily in quantum pure states, where they are protected by exact symmetries. Recently, numerous studies have theoretically demonstrated the existence of average symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases in mixed quantum states, which naturally arise in real systems due to decoherence or disorder. Despite extensive experimental observations of exact SPT phases in various systems, ranging from solid-state materials to synthetic matters, average SPT phases are yet to be observed until this work. Here we report direct observations of disorder-induced many-body interacting average SPT phase in an atom array at half-filling, whereby random offsets to tweezer locations forming a lattice implement structural disorder, resulting in fluctuating long-range dipolar interactions between tweezer confined single atoms. The induced topological phase is vindicated by the spatially resolved atom-atom correlation functions for different forms of dimer compositions. The ground state degeneracy in disordered configurations is detected and compared to the regular lattice without disorder. By probing the quench dynamics of a highly excited state, we observe markedly slower decay of edge spin magnetization in comparison to the bulk spin, consistent with the presence of topologically protected edge modes in disordered lattices.
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Submitted 10 September, 2025; v1 submitted 7 May, 2025;
originally announced May 2025.
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Quantum Hamiltonian Algorithms for Maximum Independent Sets
Authors:
Xianjue Zhao,
Peiyun Ge,
Hongye Yu,
Li You,
Frank Wilczek,
Biao Wu
Abstract:
With qubits encoded into atomic ground and Rydberg states and situated on the vertexes of a graph, the conditional quantum dynamics of Rydberg blockade, which inhibits simultaneous excitation of nearby atoms, has been employed recently to find maximum independent sets following an adiabatic evolution algorithm hereafter denoted by HV [Science 376, 1209 (2022)]. An alternative algorithm, short name…
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With qubits encoded into atomic ground and Rydberg states and situated on the vertexes of a graph, the conditional quantum dynamics of Rydberg blockade, which inhibits simultaneous excitation of nearby atoms, has been employed recently to find maximum independent sets following an adiabatic evolution algorithm hereafter denoted by HV [Science 376, 1209 (2022)]. An alternative algorithm, short named the PK algorithm, reveals that the independent sets diffuse over a media graph governed by a non-abelian gauge matrix of an emergent PXP model. This work shows the above two algorithms are mathematically equivalent, despite of their seemingly different physical implementations. More importantly, we demonstrated that although the two are mathematically equivalent, the PK algorithm exhibits more efficient and resource-saving performance. Within the same range of experimental parameters, our numerical studies suggest that the PK algorithm performs at least 25% better on average and saves at least $6\times10^6$ measurements ($\sim 900$ hours of continuous operation) for each graph when compared to the HV algorithm. We further consider the measurement error and point out that this may cause the oscillations in the performance of the HV's optimization process.
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Submitted 4 September, 2024; v1 submitted 23 October, 2023;
originally announced October 2023.
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Machine learning assisted coarse-grained molecular dynamics modeling of meso-scale interfacial fluids
Authors:
Pei Ge,
Linfeng Zhang,
Huan Lei
Abstract:
A hallmark of meso-scale interfacial fluids is the multi-faceted, scale-dependent interfacial energy, which often manifests different characteristics across the molecular and continuum scale. The multi-scale nature imposes a challenge to construct reliable coarse-grained (CG) models, where the CG potential function needs to faithfully encode the many-body interactions arising from the unresolved a…
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A hallmark of meso-scale interfacial fluids is the multi-faceted, scale-dependent interfacial energy, which often manifests different characteristics across the molecular and continuum scale. The multi-scale nature imposes a challenge to construct reliable coarse-grained (CG) models, where the CG potential function needs to faithfully encode the many-body interactions arising from the unresolved atomistic interactions and account for the heterogeneous density distributions across the interface. We construct the CG models of both single- and two-component of polymeric fluid systems based on the recently developed deep coarse-grained potential (DeePCG) scheme, where each polymer molecule is modeled as a CG particle. By only using the training samples of the instantaneous force under the thermal equilibrium state, the constructed CG models can accurately reproduce both the probability density function of the void formation in bulk and the spectrum of the capillary wave across the fluid interface. More importantly, the CG models accurately predict the volume-to-area scaling transition for the apolar solvation energy, illustrating the effectiveness to probe the meso-scale collective behaviors encoded with molecular-level fidelity.
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Submitted 22 October, 2022;
originally announced October 2022.
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Hand in Hand Evolution of b-relaxation and Boson Peak in Metallic Glasses
Authors:
B. Huang,
Z. G. Zhu,
T. P. Ge,
H. Y. Bai,
W. H. Wang
Abstract:
Boson peak and beta-relaxation are two intrinsic and markedly different dynamic modes of glasses, and their structural origins are long-standing issues. Through tuning atomic packing of a model metallic glass with microalloying of different types of elements, we find that low-temperature boson heat capacity peak evolves hand in hand with high-temperature beta-relaxation. A linear correlation betwe…
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Boson peak and beta-relaxation are two intrinsic and markedly different dynamic modes of glasses, and their structural origins are long-standing issues. Through tuning atomic packing of a model metallic glass with microalloying of different types of elements, we find that low-temperature boson heat capacity peak evolves hand in hand with high-temperature beta-relaxation. A linear correlation between the boson peak temperature and the activation energy of beta-relaxation is disclosed. The coupling of the boson peak and the beta-relaxation indicates their common structural origin of the loosely packed regions in metallic glasses.
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Submitted 1 July, 2015;
originally announced July 2015.