Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2608.07178

Exploring the Relaxation Landscape of a 2D Quantum Magnet on a 256-Qubit Processor

Tiago Mendes-Santos, Joseph Vovrosh, Sergi Julià-Farré, Dorian Claveau, Guillaume Villaret, Lucas Béguin, Lucas Leclerc, Laurin Brunner, Wladislaw Krinitsin, Matthias Hecker, Fergus Hayes, Boris Albrecht, Lilian Bourachot, Clémence Briosne-Frejaville, Antoine Cornillot, Julius de Hond, Djibril Diallo, Clément Dupays, Robin Dupont, Thomas Eritzpokhoff, Loïc Henriet, Lucas Lassablière, Arvid Lindberg, Yohann Machu, Hadriel Mamann, Thomas Pansiot, Julien Ripoll, Bruno Ximenez, Henrique Silvério, Joseph Tindall, Markus Schmitt, Markus Heyl, Adrien Signoles, Constantin Dalyac, Antoine Browaeys, Alexandre Dauphin

quant-phcond-mat.mtrl-sciSubmitted Aug 7, 2026• Announced Aug 10, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

How quantum matter relaxes far from equilibrium is a central open problem in many-body physics, and one for which analog quantum simulators are well positioned to move from confirming theory to discovering new physics. Here, we use a two-dimensional Rydberg atom array of 256 qubits to map the relaxation landscape of the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model across its phase diagram. Beyond the expected rapid thermalization, we identify two further regimes. The first is a prethermal regime whose dynamics are governed by an effective XY model. The second, and most unexpected, is a crossover regime characterized by a slowdown in relaxation. This slowdown occurs precisely where state-of-the-art classical tensor-network methods lose control at late times, whereas the quantum simulation remains consistent across system sizes. These results establish Rydberg atom arrays as a platform for scientific discovery in nonequilibrium quantum many-body dynamics.

Related papers

Observation of far-from-equilibrium scaling in the transient dynamics of 2D quantum magnets

Fabio Bensch, Umberto Borla, Federico Balducci +7 more

The transient regime of far-from-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics lacks the established organizing principles that universality and scaling provide in equilibrium. It is least understood for two-dimensional short-range interacting systems, where mean-field arguments are not expected to hold, controlled theoretical descriptions are few, and fluctuations are strong. Here we investigate the quench dynamics of the transverse-field Ising model using programmable Rydberg-atom arrays realizing honeycomb, square, kagome, and triangular lattices. Starting from a fully magnetized state, we observe a pronounced softening of the dominant collective magnetization oscillation accompanied by a maximum in the damping rate, signaling a crossover between interaction- and field-dominated transient dynamics. Even though the microscopic lattice geometries are different, both the oscillation frequencies and the damping rates collapse onto common curves after being rescaled by the coordination-number-weighted interaction strength. Our findings show that a mean-field description effectively reproduces the magnetization oscillations. The importance of correlated quantum fluctuations is underlined by the failure of the discrete truncated Wigner approximation to predict the damping for strong interactions, while tree-tensor-network simulations reproduce the dynamics accurately. These results reveal a robust scaling regime governing the transient dynamics of short-range interacting two-dimensional quantum magnets. They reveal that the dominant transient dynamics is governed by a simple collective description despite the presence of strong quantum fluctuations --- an important insight in the quest to uncover organizing principles in far-from-equilibrium quantum matter.

cond-mat.quant-gasCross-listedarXiv:2608.07211•Aug 10, 2026•0 citations

Collective cluster nucleation dynamics in quantum magnets

Philip Osterholz, Fabio Bensch, Shuanghong Tang +4 more

Strongly interacting many-body systems exhibit collective properties that emerge from complex correlations among microscopic degrees of freedom. These cooperative phenomena govern the non-equilibrium response of quantum systems, with relevance ranging from condensed matter physics to quantum field theories describing fundamental aspects of our universe. Understanding such emergent dynamics from first principles remains one of the central challenges in quantum many-body physics. Here we report on the observation of collective cluster nucleation dynamics following quenches in 2D ferromagnetic quantum Ising systems implemented in an atomic Rydberg array. Our experiments reveal two distinct regimes: In the confined regime, we observe an energy-dependent cluster size, revealing large collective clusters exceeding ten spins. In contrast, the deconfined regime is characterized by kinetically constrained, avalanche-like nucleation dynamics involving the entire system. Our findings establish a new frontier for quantum simulations with Rydberg arrays, enabling controlled exploration of non-equilibrium phenomena previously out of reach. Beyond advancing experimental capabilities, they provide fundamental insights into highly correlated processes with implications that reach from quantum magnetism and glassy dynamics to cosmological models of the early universe.

cond-mat.quant-gasCross-listedarXiv:2512.04656•Dec 5, 2025•0 citations

Quantum criticality and nonequilibrium dynamics on a Lieb lattice of Rydberg atoms

Mark R. Hirsbrunner, Milan Kornjača, Rhine Samajdar +9 more

Neutral-atom quantum simulators offer a promising approach to the exploration of strongly interacting many-body systems, with applications spanning condensed matter, statistical mechanics, and high-energy physics. Through a combination of quantum experiments, numerical calculations, and analytical methods, we demonstrate a rich set of phenomena accessible on such quantum simulators by studying an array of Rydberg atoms placed on the Lieb lattice. First, we map out the ground states and phase diagram of the system, identifying a range of density-wave-ordered phases -- including a collinear phase stabilized purely by quantum fluctuations -- and find good agreement between theory and experiment. Allowing for local control of the detuning field thereafter, we discover a quantum analog of the classical liquid-vapor transition between two density-wave phases distinguished by sublattice occupation, and probe its underlying hysteretic dynamics. Furthermore, we study out-of-equilibrium quantum quenches and observe anomalously slow relaxation dynamics consistent with the kinetic constraints of an emergent string phase. These results highlight how geometric control offered by neutral-atom simulators can extend the frontiers of programmable quantum matter, enabling access to complex phases, metastability, and thermalization dynamics in many-body quantum systems.

arXiv:2508.05737•Aug 7, 2025•0 citations

One-to-one quantum simulation of a frustrated magnet with 256 qubits

Lucas Leclerc, Sergi Julià-Farré, Gabriel Silva Freitas +33 more

Analog quantum simulators offer a powerful microscopic probe of quantum many-body systems, yet have largely been benchmarked against model Hamiltonians rather than real materials. Here, we use a 256-qubit Rydberg simulator to implement the effective Hamiltonian of the frustrated triangular-lattice magnet TmMgGaO$_4$. Simulated magnetization curves agree quantitatively with susceptibility measurements on single crystals, and both platforms consistently determine the antiferromagnetic phase transition. Snapshot-resolved analysis confirms that quantum fluctuations, rather than disorder, govern the intermediate paramagnetic regime. Having established this correspondence, we access non-equilibrium dynamics following a sudden quench, a regime at picosecond material timescales where entanglement growth places the problem beyond classical reach. The simulator reveals thermalization of local observables, demonstrating that analog quantum simulation can reproduce and extend the physics of a real material.

quant-pharXiv:2603.20372•Mar 24, 2026•0 citations

Emergent Disorder and Sub-ballistic Dynamics in Quantum Simulations of the Ising Model Using Rydberg Atom Arrays

Ceren B. Dağ, Hanzhen Ma, P. Myles Eugenio +2 more

Rydberg atom arrays with van der Waals interactions provide a controllable path to quantum simulate the locally connected transverse-field Ising model (TFIM), a prototypical model in statistical mechanics. Remotely operating the publicly accessible Aquila Rydberg atom array, we experimentally investigate the physics of TFIM far from equilibrium and uncover significant deviations from the theoretical predictions. Rather than the expected ballistic spread of correlations, the Rydberg simulator exhibits a sub-ballistic spread, along with a logarithmic scaling of entanglement entropy in time all while the system mostly retains its initial magnetization. By modeling the atom motion, we trace these effects to an emergent disorder in Rydberg atom arrays, which we characterize with a minimal random spin model. We further experimentally explore the different dynamical regimes hosted in the system by varying the lattice spacing and the Rabi frequency. Our findings highlight the crucial role of atom motion in the many-body dynamics of Rydberg atom arrays at the TFIM limit, and propose simple benchmark measurements to test for its presence in future experiments.

arXiv:2411.13643•Physical Review Letters•Nov 17, 2025•5 citations

Simulating dynamics of the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model: a comparative study of large-scale classical numerics

Joseph Vovrosh, Sergi Julià-Farré, Wladislaw Krinitsin +11 more

The quantum dynamics of many-qubit systems is an outstanding problem that has recently driven significant advances in both numerical methods and programmable quantum processing units. In this work, we employ a comprehensive toolbox of state-of-the-art numerical approaches to classically simulate the dynamics of the two-dimensional transverse field Ising model. Our methods include three different tensor network techniques -- matrix product states, tree-tensor networks, and two-dimensional tensor-networks under the belief propagation approximation -- as well as time-dependent variational Monte Carlo with Neural Quantum States. We focus on two paradigmatic dynamical protocols: (i) quantum annealing through a critical point and (ii) post-quench dynamics. Our extensive results show the quantitative predictions of various state-of-the-art numerical methods providing a benchmark for future numerical investigations and experimental studies with the aim to push the limitations on classical and QPUs. In particular, our work connects classical simulability to different regimes associated with quantum dynamics in Rydberg arrays - namely, quasi-adiabatic dynamics, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, and quantum quenches.

quant-pharXiv:2511.19340•Physical Review Research•Nov 25, 2025•1 citation
How quantum matter relaxes far from equilibrium is a central open problem in many-body physics, and one for which analog quantum simulators are well positioned to move from confirming theory to discovering new physics. Here, we use a two-dimensional Rydberg atom array of 256 qubits to map the relaxation landscape of the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model across its phase diagram. Beyond the expected rapid thermalization, we identify two further regimes. The first is a prethermal regime whose dynamics are governed by an effective XY model. The second, and most unexpected, is a crossover regime characterized by a slowdown in relaxation. This slowdown occurs precisely where state-of-the-art classical tensor-network methods lose control at late times, whereas the quantum simulation remains consistent across system sizes. These results establish Rydberg atom arrays as a platform for scientific discovery in nonequilibrium quantum many-body dynamics.
The transient regime of far-from-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics lacks the established organizing principles that universality and scaling provide in equilibrium. It is least understood for two-dimensional short-range interacting systems, where mean-field arguments are not expected to hold, controlled theoretical descriptions are few, and fluctuations are strong. Here we investigate the quench dynamics of the transverse-field Ising model using programmable Rydberg-atom arrays realizing honeycomb, square, kagome, and triangular lattices. Starting from a fully magnetized state, we observe a pronounced softening of the dominant collective magnetization oscillation accompanied by a maximum in the damping rate, signaling a crossover between interaction- and field-dominated transient dynamics. Even though the microscopic lattice geometries are different, both the oscillation frequencies and the damping rates collapse onto common curves after being rescaled by the coordination-number-weighted interaction strength. Our findings show that a mean-field description effectively reproduces the magnetization oscillations. The importance of correlated quantum fluctuations is underlined by the failure of the discrete truncated Wigner approximation to predict the damping for strong interactions, while tree-tensor-network simulations reproduce the dynamics accurately. These results reveal a robust scaling regime governing the transient dynamics of short-range interacting two-dimensional quantum magnets. They reveal that the dominant transient dynamics is governed by a simple collective description despite the presence of strong quantum fluctuations --- an important insight in the quest to uncover organizing principles in far-from-equilibrium quantum matter.
Strongly interacting many-body systems exhibit collective properties that emerge from complex correlations among microscopic degrees of freedom. These cooperative phenomena govern the non-equilibrium response of quantum systems, with relevance ranging from condensed matter physics to quantum field theories describing fundamental aspects of our universe. Understanding such emergent dynamics from first principles remains one of the central challenges in quantum many-body physics. Here we report on the observation of collective cluster nucleation dynamics following quenches in 2D ferromagnetic quantum Ising systems implemented in an atomic Rydberg array. Our experiments reveal two distinct regimes: In the confined regime, we observe an energy-dependent cluster size, revealing large collective clusters exceeding ten spins. In contrast, the deconfined regime is characterized by kinetically constrained, avalanche-like nucleation dynamics involving the entire system. Our findings establish a new frontier for quantum simulations with Rydberg arrays, enabling controlled exploration of non-equilibrium phenomena previously out of reach. Beyond advancing experimental capabilities, they provide fundamental insights into highly correlated processes with implications that reach from quantum magnetism and glassy dynamics to cosmological models of the early universe.
Neutral-atom quantum simulators offer a promising approach to the exploration of strongly interacting many-body systems, with applications spanning condensed matter, statistical mechanics, and high-energy physics. Through a combination of quantum experiments, numerical calculations, and analytical methods, we demonstrate a rich set of phenomena accessible on such quantum simulators by studying an array of Rydberg atoms placed on the Lieb lattice. First, we map out the ground states and phase diagram of the system, identifying a range of density-wave-ordered phases -- including a collinear phase stabilized purely by quantum fluctuations -- and find good agreement between theory and experiment. Allowing for local control of the detuning field thereafter, we discover a quantum analog of the classical liquid-vapor transition between two density-wave phases distinguished by sublattice occupation, and probe its underlying hysteretic dynamics. Furthermore, we study out-of-equilibrium quantum quenches and observe anomalously slow relaxation dynamics consistent with the kinetic constraints of an emergent string phase. These results highlight how geometric control offered by neutral-atom simulators can extend the frontiers of programmable quantum matter, enabling access to complex phases, metastability, and thermalization dynamics in many-body quantum systems.
Analog quantum simulators offer a powerful microscopic probe of quantum many-body systems, yet have largely been benchmarked against model Hamiltonians rather than real materials. Here, we use a 256-qubit Rydberg simulator to implement the effective Hamiltonian of the frustrated triangular-lattice magnet TmMgGaO4_44​. Simulated magnetization curves agree quantitatively with susceptibility measurements on single crystals, and both platforms consistently determine the antiferromagnetic phase transition. Snapshot-resolved analysis confirms that quantum fluctuations, rather than disorder, govern the intermediate paramagnetic regime. Having established this correspondence, we access non-equilibrium dynamics following a sudden quench, a regime at picosecond material timescales where entanglement growth places the problem beyond classical reach. The simulator reveals thermalization of local observables, demonstrating that analog quantum simulation can reproduce and extend the physics of a real material.
Rydberg atom arrays with van der Waals interactions provide a controllable path to quantum simulate the locally connected transverse-field Ising model (TFIM), a prototypical model in statistical mechanics. Remotely operating the publicly accessible Aquila Rydberg atom array, we experimentally investigate the physics of TFIM far from equilibrium and uncover significant deviations from the theoretical predictions. Rather than the expected ballistic spread of correlations, the Rydberg simulator exhibits a sub-ballistic spread, along with a logarithmic scaling of entanglement entropy in time all while the system mostly retains its initial magnetization. By modeling the atom motion, we trace these effects to an emergent disorder in Rydberg atom arrays, which we characterize with a minimal random spin model. We further experimentally explore the different dynamical regimes hosted in the system by varying the lattice spacing and the Rabi frequency. Our findings highlight the crucial role of atom motion in the many-body dynamics of Rydberg atom arrays at the TFIM limit, and propose simple benchmark measurements to test for its presence in future experiments.
The quantum dynamics of many-qubit systems is an outstanding problem that has recently driven significant advances in both numerical methods and programmable quantum processing units. In this work, we employ a comprehensive toolbox of state-of-the-art numerical approaches to classically simulate the dynamics of the two-dimensional transverse field Ising model. Our methods include three different tensor network techniques -- matrix product states, tree-tensor networks, and two-dimensional tensor-networks under the belief propagation approximation -- as well as time-dependent variational Monte Carlo with Neural Quantum States. We focus on two paradigmatic dynamical protocols: (i) quantum annealing through a critical point and (ii) post-quench dynamics. Our extensive results show the quantitative predictions of various state-of-the-art numerical methods providing a benchmark for future numerical investigations and experimental studies with the aim to push the limitations on classical and QPUs. In particular, our work connects classical simulability to different regimes associated with quantum dynamics in Rydberg arrays - namely, quasi-adiabatic dynamics, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, and quantum quenches.