Ultracold neutral atoms in optical lattices have become a powerful platform for the simulation of complex quantum systems. With our quantum gas microscope, we measure snapshots of the quantum many-body wavefunction by fully resolving the position and spin of each atom. I will present the application of this method to two quantum phases: The Haldane spin-1 phase is the prototype of a symmetry-protected topological phase, whose spin order is hidden in conventional two-point correlation functions. On our images, we can evaluate the characteristic string-correlator of this state and directly see the associated edge states of the system. In an antiferromagnetic background, holes get dressed by a surrounding cloud of ferromagnetic correlations. We study these magnetic polarons, which are a building block of the intricate physics of cuprates, by mapping out the spatial structure of the spin environment of individual holes. Upon increased doping, we observe the transition from this unusual polaronic metal to a Fermi Liquid and provide quantum-simulated results of the Fermi-Hubbard model as a benchmark for different theoretical approaches.
Ultracold neutral atoms in optical lattices have become a powerful platform for the simulation of complex quantum systems. With our quantum gas microscope, we measure snapshots of the quantum many-body wavefunction by fully resolving the position and spin of each atom. I will present the application of this method to two quantum phases: The Haldane spin-1 phase is the prototype of a symmetry-protected topological phase, whose spin order is hidden in conventional two-point correlation functions. On our images, we can evaluate the characteristic string-correlator of this state and directly see the associated edge states of the system. In an antiferromagnetic background, holes get dressed by a surrounding cloud of ferromagnetic correlations. We study these magnetic polarons, which are a building block of the intricate physics of cuprates, by mapping out the spatial structure of the spin environment of individual holes. Upon increased doping, we observe the transition from this unusual polaronic metal to a Fermi Liquid and provide quantum-simulated results of the Fermi-Hubbard model as a benchmark for different theoretical approaches.
Among the most compelling targets for quantum simulation are strongly correlated phases and electronic-structure problems, where interactions organize electrons into collective states and produce intricate low-temperature phase diagrams. Cuprate superconductors are a canonical example: at low doping, superconductivity emerges from a metallic regime that exhibits a pseudogap above the critical temperature. Ultracold atoms in optical lattices provide a well-controlled, tunable setting to probe the microscopic mechanisms behind this behavior and, in fermion-native architectures, to implement electronic structure dynamics directly. This thesis demonstrates both large scale systematic analog quantum simulations in the most interesting regime of doped antiferromagnets and elementary high-fidelity gates as the basis for a digital or hybrid fermionic quantum processors in an optical lattice. Working with ultracold Lithium-6 in a two–dimensional optical superlattice, we first map the parameter space of the Fermi–Hubbard model over a wide range of temperatures and dopings. More than 40000 single-site spin- and density-resolved snapshots, spanning over a dense grid of doping levels and temperatures in a numerically challenging parameter space, reveal antiferromagnetic correlations extending across the system size and into the pseudogap regime. Temperatures down to T/t=0.2 are realized, determined by benchmarking the data to state-of-the-art numerical methods. By evaluating spin–charge correlators up to fifth order, we experimentally uncover a universal scaling behavior across the pseudogap crossover, governed by a single, doping-dependent temperature scale. These findings provide the first microscopic evidence of universal scaling in multi-point correlators and establish stringent benchmarks for future theoretical developments. On the same apparatus, we demonstrate that the controlled motion of fermions in double wells enables high-fidelity entanglement. Double-well potentials are used to engineer coherent pair-tunnelling and spin-exchange interactions that act as native SWAP^α operations. We demonstrate the collisional gate fidelities up to 99.8% and Bell-state lifetimes exceeding ten seconds, limited mainly by residual inhomogeneities in the optical potential. A composite pulse sequence isolates the pair-exchange channel, realizing the elementary building block required for fermionic quantum-chemistry algorithms. With the addition of site-selective addressing, our results mark a key step towards a fully digital, scalable fermionic quantum computer based on the controlled motion and entanglement of fermionic neutral atoms. The work establishes a hybrid analog-digital architecture: analog evolution under the Hubbard Hamiltonian yields thermodynamic states whose magnetic properties match and extend theoretical benchmarks, while digital collisional gates provide building blocks for error-corrected quantum computation and complex state preparation.
Abstract Topology in quantum many-body systems has profoundly changed our understanding of quantum phases of matter. The model that has played an instrumental role in elucidating these effects is the antiferromagnetic spin-1 Haldane chain 1,2 . Its ground state is a disordered state, with symmetry-protected fourfold-degenerate edge states due to fractional spin excitations. In the bulk, it is characterized by vanishing two-point spin correlations, gapped excitations and a characteristic non-local order parameter 3,4 . More recently it has been understood that the Haldane chain forms a specific example of a more general classification scheme of symmetry-protected topological phases of matter, which is based on ideas connected to quantum information and entanglement 5–7 . Here, we realize a finite-temperature version of such a topological Haldane phase with Fermi–Hubbard ladders in an ultracold-atom quantum simulator. We directly reveal both edge and bulk properties of the system through the use of single-site and particle-resolved measurements, as well as non-local correlation functions. Continuously changing the Hubbard interaction strength of the system enables us to investigate the robustness of the phase to charge (density) fluctuations far from the regime of the Heisenberg model, using a novel correlator.
Obtaining a microscopic understanding of the dynamics in strongly correlated electronic systems has remained a challenge for many decades. The interplay between the spin and charge degrees of freedom in these materials at different temperatures and dopant concentrations is not well understood and is still an area of intense scientific research. Recently, quantum simulators based on ultracold atoms in optical lattices have emerged as a promising platform to probe strongly correlated fermionic systems. This thesis reports on the work carried out with a quantum gas microscope of ultracold fermionic Li-6, where Fermi-Hubbard systems are prepared and imaged with single site spin and density resolution. The main results of the thesis explore the microscopic dynamics underlying one-dimensional materials, where individual constituents such as the electron with charge e and spin-1/2 are not relevant to the description of the system anymore and are instead replaced by spin and charge excitations that can propagate independent of one another - a phenomenon called spin-charge separation. In our quantum simulator, we use analogous one-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard chains of Li-6, to perform time- and space-resolved microscopy of the spin and charge excitations following a local quench. By extracting their strikingly different velocities and showing an absence of binding between the excitations, we demonstrate spin-charge separation. Our microscopic technique also allows us to quantitatively extract the excess spin carried by the spin excitiation, connecting our results to the phenomenon of fractionalization. In another set of experiments, Fermi-Hubbard chains are probed at equilibrium and incommensurate spin correlations arising in the presence of both density doping and spin polarization are observed. The wavevector of these incommensurate correlations are found to have a linear dependence on doping and polarization. Finally, the effect of the spin-charge interplay is probed in the crossover from one to two dimensions. The spin correlations across dopants are seen to be dramatically different in two dimensions, and the strong antiferromagnetic correlations across dopants present in one dimension disappear. For a single dopant in a fully two dimensional system, the spin-charge interplay manifests as a distorted spin cloud surrounding the dopant, indicating the formation of a magnetic polaron. The experiments reported here demonstrate the power of a quantum simulator; by probing the physics of strongly correlated systems in real space with unprecedented resolution, we can zoom into emergent phenomena, validate theories and access regimes that are not possible in other experimental settings.
In this thesis, I present the experimental realisation of the two-dimensional Hubbard model with ultracold fermionic Potassium-40 atoms in optical lattices. By tuning the dimensionality, kinetic and interaction in the optical lattices, we perform an analogue quantum simulation to explore the phase diagram of the Hubbard model. \n \nThe first key result is the experimental observation of particle-hole symmetry, namely a phase mapping between repulsive and attractive interactions. We compare a density-ordered, Mott-insulating phase with repulsive interaction to a spin-ordered, preformed pair phase and found excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction. The precise control and excellent detection capability of our quantum gas apparatus allow us to validate the particle-hole symmetry, and utilise it to explore quantum phases with a novel approach. \n \nNext, we investigate the spin-ordering on the repulsive side. By implementing a novel scheme based on coherent manipulation of spin correlations, we probe the anti-ferromagnetic ordering in the low-temperature phase diagram. The momentum-resolved spin correlations permit the reconstruction of spatial correlators without site-resolved imaging fidelity. \n \nFinally, we probe the attractive side of the phase diagram with a focus in pairing phenomenon, in which we draw a close analogy with BCS-BEC crossovers present in high-temperature superconducting cuprates and trapped ultracold Fermi gases. From the pair correlation function derived from thermodynamics observables, we observe the competition between the effective Pauli repulsion in fermionic systems and the on-site attraction we implemented.
Studying the low-temperature phases of doped Hubbard models, including the emergence of collective order and exotic normal phases, is at the heart of strongly correlated physics. This thesis offers new theoretical insights into the low-energy physics of doped Hubbard models, with a particular emphasis on leveraging quantum simulation as a powerful investigative tool. We explore the emergence of collective order driven by many-body interactions, by predicting and observing stripe-like structures in quantum gas microscopes of engineered Hamiltonians. These fluctuating stripe patterns are developed into a theoretical framework for the pseudogap— a highly enigmatic phase in hole-doped cuprates—where we show how fluctuating domain walls yield effective toric code descriptions. Ultracold atoms in optical lattices provide a unique platform for directly probing and testing this theory. We further investigate unconventional bilayer nickelate superconductors, predicting an exceptionally stable superfluid state in a single-band Hubbard model at experimentally accessible temperatures. By proposing schemes to observe coherent pair-pair correlations, this advances the long-standing goal of realizing and observing long-range superconducting order in ultracold atomic systems in optical lattices. On non-bipartite lattices, we examine kinetic magnetism in Hubbard models and moiré heterostructures. Additionally, the low-temperature regime of doped Hubbard models with enhanced symmetries is analyzed, revealing exotic phenomena such as sub-dimensional polaronic particles. We develop machine learning techniques to extract key physical insights from many-body snapshots, offering a new avenue for understanding intricate quantum phases. Finally, we go beyond the Fermi-Hubbard paradigm and show how non-local strongly correlated models can be leveraged to address classical optimization problems through quantum annealing.
Exotic phases of matter can emerge from strong correlations in quantum many-body systems. Quantum gas microscopy affords the opportunity to study these correlations with unprecedented detail. Here, we report site-resolved observations of antiferromagnetic correlations in a two-dimensional, Hubbard-regime optical lattice and demonstrate the ability to measure the spin-correlation function over any distance. We measure the in situ distributions of the particle density and magnetic correlations, extract thermodynamic quantities from comparisons to theory, and observe statistically significant correlations over three lattice sites. The temperatures that we reach approach the limits of available numerical simulations. The direct access to many-body physics at the single-particle level demonstrated by our results will further our understanding of how the interplay of motion and magnetism gives rise to new states of matter.