Quantum geometry underlies a wide range of correlated phenomena in electronic systems, yet accessing the geometry of individual bands remains experimentally challenging. Advances in quantum simulators, such as ultracold atoms in optical lattices, have enabled local state preparation and site-resolved measurements, offering direct access to quantum dynamics beyond conventional transport probes. These developments naturally raise the question of whether band-resolved quantum geometry can be extracted from local occupation readouts. Here, we propose an on-site quench protocol to probe the flat-band quantum geometry via local occupation measurements in an atomic lattice. Our scheme dynamically isolates the flat-band sector by coupling a one-dimensional flat-band lattice to a two-dimensional flat-band bath. The bath selectively removes dispersive excitations, while compact localized states remain trapped due to their overlap with the flat-band modes of the bath. We show that the late-time occupation pattern directly encodes the integrated overlaps between flat-band states separated by the wavevector of the initial density pattern, thereby enabling access to integrated quantum distances between the states separated by the commensurate momenta $δk = 2 πs/r$, $s,r \in \mathbb Z$ and to the integrated flat-band quantum metric. Our results thereby establish a direct connection between quantum geometry and the long-time memory of an initial spatial pattern in flat-band systems.
Quantum geometry underlies a wide range of correlated phenomena in electronic systems, yet accessing the geometry of individual bands remains experimentally challenging. Advances in quantum simulators, such as ultracold atoms in optical lattices, have enabled local state preparation and site-resolved measurements, offering direct access to quantum dynamics beyond conventional transport probes. These developments naturally raise the question of whether band-resolved quantum geometry can be extracted from local occupation readouts. Here, we propose an on-site quench protocol to probe the flat-band quantum geometry via local occupation measurements in an atomic lattice. Our scheme dynamically isolates the flat-band sector by coupling a one-dimensional flat-band lattice to a two-dimensional flat-band bath. The bath selectively removes dispersive excitations, while compact localized states remain trapped due to their overlap with the flat-band modes of the bath. We show that the late-time occupation pattern directly encodes the integrated overlaps between flat-band states separated by the wavevector of the initial density pattern, thereby enabling access to integrated quantum distances between the states separated by the commensurate momenta δk=2πs/r, s,r∈Z and to the integrated flat-band quantum metric. Our results thereby establish a direct connection between quantum geometry and the long-time memory of an initial spatial pattern in flat-band systems.
We investigate the unitary evolution following a quantum quench in quantum spin models possessing a (nearly) flat band in the linear excitation spectrum. Inspired by the perspective offered by ensembles of individually trapped Rydberg atoms, we focus on the paradigmatic trasverse-field Ising model on two-dimensional lattices featuring a flat band as a result of destructive interference effects (Lieb and kagom\'e lattice), or a nearly flat band due to a strong energy mismatch among sublattices (triangular lattice). Making use of linear spin-wave theory, we show that quantum quenches, equipped with single-spin imaging, can directly reveal the spatially localized nature of the dispersionless excitations, and their slow propagation or lack of propagation altogether. Moreover, we show that Fourier analysis applied to the postquench time evolution of wave-vector-dependent quantities allows for the spectroscopic reconstruction of the flat bands. Our results pave the way for future experiments with Rydberg quantum simulators, which can extend our linear spin-wave study to the fully nonlinear regime, characterized by the appearance of dense, strongly interacting gases of dispersionless excitations.
Real-space interference of wave packets is governed by their central momentum separation and momentum width, which set the oscillation wavelength and spatial envelope, respectively. Here, we show that in crystalline systems, quantum metric distribution in an isolated band can similarly give rise to real-space interference through the evanescent tails of a localized bound state. The location and width of a quantum metric hot spot in the momentum space set a complex wavevector as one evanescent plane wave component of a bound state. Consequently, with multiple quantum metric hot spots, the density distribution of a bound state or the total density of two spatially overlapped bound states exhibits an interference pattern, where the oscillation period and long-range decay length are determined by the momentum-space separation of the hot spots and the width of the narrowest hot spots, respectively. This quantum-geometric interference is particularly pronounced in (nearly) flat bands, where competing scales from band dispersion are suppressed. Furthermore, we demonstrate that using a Josephson STM the real-space interference can be experimentally observed through the tip-position dependence of the Josephson critical current. Our results reveal a direct correspondence between momentum-space quantum geometry and real-space interference, showing how bound-state profiles encode the momentum-resolved quantum metric.
The realization of robust quantum storage devices relies on the ability to generate long-lived, spatially localized states. In this Letter, we introduce a method for the targeted creation of compact excitations in flat-band lattices. By injecting in-plane radiation waves from the system's edge and applying a localized on-site potential at the desired storage position, we induce hybridization between compact localized states of the flat band and resonant dispersive plane waves. This hybridization enables the formation of spatially compact, stable excitations suitable for quantum memory applications. We experimentally validate this mechanism using photonic waveguide arrays, focusing on two representative geometries: the diamond chain and the one-dimensional Lieb ladder. Our approach is broadly applicable to any platform supporting flat-band physics.
Abstract Flat-band systems offer a uniquely powerful tool for quantum control in dynamics due to their characteristic feature of having a dispersionless energy band. Simulating such highly sensitive systems on current digital quantum computers is a challenging task, due to the intrinsic limitations of the noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices. Here we present high-fidelity digital quantum simulations of flat-band (FB) and all-bands-flat (ABF) lattices, using an advanced tensor network based variational optimization approach to compress the circuit depth. With the compressed quantum circuits, we first explore single-particle dynamics and observe two distinct behaviours: strong localization in ABF lattices and delocalization in FB lattices. By integrating FB and ABF lattices into a one-dimensional hybrid structure, we achieve controllable quantum transport, where the ABF lattice acts as a quantum switch. Extending to two-particle dynamics, we show that transport remains controllable by tuning the hopping amplitude alone, even in the presence of interactions. These results establish FB engineered systems as a promising pathway for scalable control of quantum transport in emerging quantum technologies, with potential applications in qubit isolation, particle trapping, and state transfer.
In flat-band systems with quenched kinetic energy, most of the conventional length scales related to the band dispersion become ineffectual. Although a few geometric length scales, such as the quantum metric length, can still be defined, because of their embedding dependence, i.e., the dependence on the choice of orbital positions used to construct the tight-binding model, they cannot serve as a universal length scale of the flat-band systems. Here, we introduce an embedding independent length scale ξflat of a flat band that is defined as the localization length of an in-gap state proximate to the flat band. Because ξflat is derived from the intrinsic localization of compact localized states, it is solely determined by the Hamiltonian and provides a robust foundation for embedding independent observables. We show analytically that the superconducting coherence length in a flat-band superconductor is given by ξflat in the weak-coupling limit, thereby identifying ξflat as the relevant length scale for many-body phenomena. Numerical simulations on various lattice models confirm all theoretical predictions, including the correspondence between ξflat and the superconducting coherence length. Our results highlight ξflat as a universal length scale for flat bands and open a pathway to embedding independent characterization of interacting flat-band materials.
Superconductivity in flat-band systems, governed by quantum metric of Bloch states rather than the BCS framework, exhibits unique phenomena due to the vanishing electron group velocity. Here, we propose the vortex states and vortex size as direct probes to explore the quantum geometry effects in flat-band superconductors. We show that flat-band vortex bound states are sharply localized near the vortex core, and the energy gap between the lowest two bound states is on the order of the bulk superconducting gap. Both the spatial spread and energy scales of bound states are controlled by the flat-band's quantum metric length. Moreover, the vortex size at zero temperature, set by the quantum metric length, is atomic in scale and independent of interaction strength. Near Tc, the vortex size corresponds to the Ginzburg-Landau coherence length, diverges as ξ∼Tc/(Tc−T)ξ0, where ξ0 depends linearly on the quantum metric length. Thus, the quantum metric serves as the lower bound for vortex state spread and vortex size. We also introduce perturbations to make the flat band dispersive, and distinguish flat-band vortices from BCS-like vortices. Our results establish vortices as universal probes of quantum geometry in flat-band superconductors.