Metastable confinement in Rydberg lattice gauge theories

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2602.22890v1
• Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 11:27:44 GMT
• Title: Metastable confinement in Rydberg lattice gauge theories
• Authors: Yaohua Li, Devendra Singh Bhakuni, Yong-Chun Liu, Marcello Dalmonte,
• Abstract summary: We report the emergence of metastable confinement dynamics in a U(1) lattice gauge theory.<n>We show that the initial string state can be resonantly melted through controlled energy matching.<n>Our work provides new insights into the mechanisms of confinement and string breaking driven by long-range interactions and time-dependent fields.
• Score: 0.7099737083842057
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Confinement and string breaking are two fundamental phenomena in gauge theories. Signatures of both are currently pursued in quantum-simulator experiments, opening a new angle on strongly interacting dynamics of gauge fields out of equilibrium, complementary to traditional particle-physics settings. In this work, we report the emergence of metastable confinement dynamics in a U(1) lattice gauge theory, originating from the competition between string tension and four-Fermi coupling - a competition that naturally arises in Rydberg atom arrays. We show that the initial string state can be resonantly melted through controlled energy matching, a phenomenon we identify as resonant string breaking. We demonstrate this mechanism for both static and Floquet-driven systems, where periodic modulation generates a spectrum of tunable sideband resonances. Our work provides new insights into the mechanisms of confinement and string breaking driven by long-range interactions and time-dependent fields, which are available in current quantum simulators on a variety of platforms.

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