Abstract Topological phases of spin liquids with constrained disorder can host a kinetics of fractionalized excitations. However, spin-liquid phases with distinct kinetic regimes have proven difficult to observe experimentally. Here we present a realization of kagome spin ice in the superconducting qubits of a quantum annealer, and use it to demonstrate a field-induced kinetic crossover between spin-liquid phases. Employing fine control over local magnetic fields, we show evidence of both the Ice-I phase and an unconventional field-induced Ice-II phase. In the latter, a charge-ordered yet spin-disordered topological phase, the kinetics proceeds via pair creation and annihilation of strongly correlated, charge conserving, fractionalized excitations. As these kinetic regimes have resisted characterization in other artificial spin ice realizations, our results demonstrate the utility of quantum-driven kinetics in advancing the study of topological phases of spin liquids.
Topological phases of spin liquids with constrained disorder can host a kinetics of fractionalized excitations. However, spin-liquid phases with distinct kinetic regimes have proven difficult to observe experimentally. Here we present a realization of kagome spin ice in the superconducting qubits of a quantum annealer, and use it to demonstrate a field-induced kinetic crossover between spin-liquid phases. Employing fine control over local magnetic fields, we show evidence of both the Ice-I phase and an unconventional field-induced Ice-II phase. In the latter, a charge-ordered yet spin-disordered topological phase, the kinetics proceeds via pair creation and annihilation of strongly correlated, charge conserving, fractionalized excitations. As these kinetic regimes have resisted characterization in other artificial spin ice realizations, our results demonstrate the utility of quantum-driven kinetics in advancing the study of topological phases of spin liquids.
The interplay between interlayer coupling and quantum fluctuations governs charge ordering and defect dynamics in Kagome systems, yet these parameters are intrinsically entangled in existing Kagome metals and artificial spin-ice platforms, preventing their independent control. Here we realize a bilayer Kagome frustrated-magnet simulator comprising 1,536 connected spins on D-Wave quantum annealer, in which the effective quantum drive,
Γeff, and interlayer exchange,
J⊥, are independently programmable. We observe an interlayer-driven transition from ferroelectric to antiferroelectric Ice-II charge order at a critical coupling
(J⊥/J1)∗≈0.04, a phenomenon absent in single-layer geometries. Monte Carlo calculations show the transition persists in the classical limit, allowing the experimentally observed critical coupling to quantify the quantum renormalization induced by fluctuations. Applying resulting phase diagram to Kagome charge-density-wave materials places KV
3Sb
5 and RbV
3Sb
5 deep within the ordered antiferroelectric regime, while locating CsV
3Sb
5 near the phase boundary, providing a natural explanation for its metastable
2×2×4 stacking order. We further show that restricting charge-correlation measurements to ice-rule configurations resolves a systematic underestimation of ordering in conventional analyses, enabling direct reinterpretation of resonant X-ray, XMCD, STM and anomalous Hall experiments. Finally, we demonstrate that the same charge-sector reorganization framework explains near-degenerate plateau states in the metallic Kagome spin-ice HoAgGe and yields experimentally testable predictions for nanomagnetic, Kagome-metal and van der Waals frustrated systems. These results establish programmable quantum annealers as scalable simulators of emergent charge order and monopole physics in frustrated quantum matter.
Artificial spin ices are frustrated spin systems that can be engineered, in which fine tuning of geometry and topology has allowed the design and characterization of exotic emergent phenomena at the constituent level. Here, we report a realization of spin ice in a lattice of superconducting qubits. Unlike conventional artificial spin ice, our system is disordered by both quantum and thermal fluctuations. The ground state is classically described by the ice rule, and we achieved control over a fragile degeneracy point, leading to a Coulomb phase. The ability to pin individual spins allows us to demonstrate Gauss's law for emergent effective monopoles in two dimensions. The demonstrated qubit control lays the groundwork for potential future study of topologically protected artificial quantum spin liquids.
Frustrated spin-ice systems support emergent gauge fields and fractionalized quasiparticles that act as magnetic monopoles. Although artificial platforms have enabled their direct visualization, access to their quantum-coherent dynamics has remained limited. Here we realize a programmable dipolar square spin-ice model using a superconducting-qubit quantum annealer, providing access to a previously unexplored quantum-coherent regime of artificial spin ice. By implementing a direct one-to-one mapping between lattice spins and physical qubits, together with engineered extended couplings, we realize effective dipolar interactions on frustrated lattices comprising more than 400 vertices. Tuning transverse-field fluctuations enables us to probe the real-time dynamics of Dirac-string defects and interacting monopole plasmas. We observe super-diffusive monopole transport, with scaling exponents intermediate between classical diffusion and ballistic motion, indicating dynamics beyond classical stochastic relaxation and consistent with coherent propagation within an emergent gauge manifold. These results establish programmable quantum spin ice as a scalable platform for investigating fractionalized excitations and emergent gauge dynamics in engineered quantum matter.
Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are exotic phases of matter that host fractionalized excitations. It is difficult for local probes to characterize QSL, whereas quantum entanglement can serve as a powerful diagnostic tool due to its nonlocality. The kagome antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model is one of the most studied and experimentally relevant models for QSL, but its solution remains under debate. Here, we perform a numerical Aharonov-Bohm experiment on this model and uncover universal features of the entanglement entropy. By means of the density matrix renormalization group, we reveal the entanglement signatures of emergent Dirac spinons, which are the fractionalized excitations of the QSL. This scheme provides qualitative insights into the nature of kagome QSL and can be used to study other quantum states of matter. As a concrete example, we also benchmark our methods on an interacting quantum critical point between a Dirac semimetal and a charge-ordered phase.
The emergence of fractionalized quasiparticles in quantum spin liquids has served a wealth of unconventional phenomena in frustrated magnets. In our work, we explore the various domain patterns of such fractionalized quasiparticles, especially focusing on charge defects in U(1) quantum spin liquids. We claim that emergent long range interaction between charge defects leads to characteristic structures with distinct length scales, where they can be controlled via the ratio of interaction strengths. In this context, the spin ice phase is the dilute gas of weakly interacting charges, whereas, the macroscopic population of charge defects naturally develops charge ordering for large Coulomb interaction limit. Interestingly, we find that the competing spin interactions could naturally give rise to stabilize the mosaic structure of charge defects in the absence of uniform ordering. They are characterized by liquid-like correlations having a finite length scale. The emergence of such intermediate order in the mosaic structure is confirmed by both dynamical and static correlations. By establishing the microscopic spin Hamiltonian, we also present the distinctive signatures in static spin correlation to detect such spatial structure of charge defects. We speculate that the domain pattern of defect population might be a potential hallmark to reveal unusual dynamical properties observed in spin liquids.