Quantum simulation of the Dicke model in a two-dimensional ion crystal: chaos, quantum thermalization, and revivals

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2602.06114v1
• Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:00:01 GMT
• Title: Quantum simulation of the Dicke model in a two-dimensional ion crystal: chaos, quantum thermalization, and revivals
• Authors: Bryce Bullock, Sean R. Muleady, Jennifer F. Lilieholm, Yicheng Zhang, Robert J. Lewis-Swan, John J. Bollinger, Ana Maria Rey, Allison L. Carter,
• Abstract summary: We realize the Dicke model -- a fundamental description of light-matter interactions -- in a two-dimensional crystal of 100 trapped ions.<n>Our results establish large ion crystals as scalable analog quantum simulators of non-equilibrium light-matter dynamics.
• Score: 2.699606229706245
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Quantum many-body systems driven far from equilibrium can exhibit chaos, entanglement, and non-classical correlations, yet directly observing these phenomena in large, closed quantum systems remains challenging. Here we realize the Dicke model -- a fundamental description of light-matter interactions -- in a two-dimensional crystal of approximately 100 trapped ions. The ions' internal state is optically coupled to the center of mass vibrational mode via an optical spin-dependent force, enabling unitary many-body dynamics beyond the mean-field and few-body limits. In the integrable regime, where the phonons can be adiabatically eliminated, we observe a dynamical phase transition between ferromagnetic to paramagnetic spin phases. In contrast, when the spins and phonons are strongly coupled, we observe clear signatures of non-integrable chaotic dynamics, including erratic phase-space trajectories and the exponential growth of excitations and entanglement quantified by the one-body Rényi entropy. By quenching from an unstable fixed point in the near-integrable regime, quantum noise can generate correlated spin-phonon excitations. Our numerical calculations, in clear agreement with experiment, reveal the generation of two-mode spin-phonon squeezing, 2.6 dB below the standard quantum limit (4.6 dB relative to the initial thermal state), followed by generalized vacuum Rabi collapses and revivals. Our results establish large ion crystals as scalable analog quantum simulators of non-equilibrium light-matter dynamics and provide a controlled platform for experimental studies of information scrambling and entanglement in closed many-body systems.

Related papers

• Probing emergent prethermal dynamics and resonant melting on a programmable quantum simulator [28.28351393962583]
  dynamics of isolated quantum systems following a sudden quench plays a central role in many areas of material science, high-energy physics, and quantum chemistry.<n>Here, we use a programmable neutral atom quantum simulator to explore quench dynamics in spin models with up to 180 qubits.<n>We trace their robustness to Floquet-like prethermal steady states that are stabilized over long emergent timescales.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-10-13T17:58:04Z)
• Observation of many-body coherence in quasi-one-dimensional attractive Bose gases [2.023140069605251]
  Macroscopic coherence is an important feature of quantum many-body systems exhibiting collective behaviors.<n>Here, we experimentally study the first- and second-order coherence of degenerate quasi-one-dimensional (1D) Bose gases quenched from repulsive to modulationally unstable interaction regimes.<n>The resulting dynamics reveals phase-coherent density wave evolutions arising from the interplay between noise-amplified density modulations and dispersive shock waves of broad interest within nonlinear physics.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-06-16T15:23:20Z)
• A dissipation-induced superradiant transition in a strontium cavity-QED system [0.0]
  In cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), emitters and a resonator are coupled together to enable precise studies of quantum light-matter interactions. Here we provide an observation of the continuous superradiant phase transition predicted in the CRF model using an ensemble of ultracold $88$Sr atoms. Our observations are a first step towards finer control of driven-dissipative systems, which have been predicted to generate quantum states.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-08-20T18:00:00Z)
• Quench dynamics in higher-dimensional Holstein models: Insights from Truncated Wigner Approaches [41.94295877935867]
  We study the melting of charge-density waves in a Holstein model after a sudden switch-on of the electronic hopping. A comparison with exact data obtained for a Holstein chain shows that a semiclassical treatment of both the electrons and phonons is required in order to correctly describe the phononic dynamics.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-12-19T16:14:01Z)
• Dynamics of spin-momentum entanglement from superradiant phase transitions [0.0]
  We consider an experimentally feasible many-body cavity QED model describing a four-level system. The resulting model comprises a pair of Dicke Hamiltonians constructed from pseudo-spin operators. We discuss the role of cavity losses in steering the system's dynamics into such entangled states.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-12-06T19:00:01Z)
• Dissipative stabilization of maximal entanglement between non-identical emitters via two-photon excitation [49.1574468325115]
  Two non-identical quantum emitters, when placed within a cavity and coherently excited at the two-photon resonance, can reach stationary states of nearly maximal entanglement. We show that this mechanism is merely one among a complex family of phenomena that can generate both stationary and metastable entanglement when driving the emitters at the two-photon resonance.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-06-09T16:49:55Z)
• Dipolar quantum solids emerging in a Hubbard quantum simulator [45.82143101967126]
  Long-range and anisotropic interactions promote rich spatial structure in quantum mechanical many-body systems. We show that novel strongly correlated quantum phases can be realized using long-range dipolar interaction in optical lattices. This work opens the door to quantum simulations of a wide range of lattice models with long-range and anisotropic interactions.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-06-01T16:49:20Z)
• Slow semiclassical dynamics of a two-dimensional Hubbard model in disorder-free potentials [77.34726150561087]
  We show that introduction of harmonic and spin-dependent linear potentials sufficiently validates fTWA for longer times. In particular, we focus on a finite two-dimensional system and show that at intermediate linear potential strength, the addition of a harmonic potential and spin dependence of the tilt, results in subdiffusive dynamics.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-10-03T16:51:25Z)
• Formation of robust bound states of interacting microwave photons [148.37607455646454]
  One of the hallmarks of interacting systems is the formation of multi-particle bound states. We develop a high fidelity parameterizable fSim gate that implements the periodic quantum circuit of the spin-1/2 XXZ model. By placing microwave photons in adjacent qubit sites, we study the propagation of these excitations and observe their bound nature for up to 5 photons.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-06-10T17:52:29Z)
• Visualizing spinon Fermi surfaces with time-dependent spectroscopy [62.997667081978825]
  We propose applying time-dependent photo-emission spectroscopy, an established tool in solid state systems, in cold atom quantum simulators. We show in exact diagonalization simulations of the one-dimensional $t-J$ model that the spinons start to populate previously unoccupied states in an effective band structure. The dependence of the spectral function on the time after the pump pulse reveals collective interactions among spinons.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-05-27T18:00:02Z)
• The nonlinear semiclassical dynamics of the unbalanced, open Dicke model [0.0]
  The Dicke model exhibits a quantum phase transition to a state in which the atoms collectively emit light into the cavity mode, known as superradiance. We study this system in the semiclassical (mean field) limit, neglecting the role of quantum fluctuations. We find that a flip of the collective spin can result in the sudden emergence of chaotic dynamics.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-04-09T11:13:20Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.