Probing site-resolved correlations in a spin system of ultracold molecules.

Synthetic quantum systems with interacting constituents play an important role in quantum information processing and in explaining fundamental phenomena in many-body physics. Following impressive advances in cooling and trapping techniques, ensembles of ultracold polar molecules have emerged as a promising platform that combines several advantageous properties1-11. These include a large set of internal states with long coherence times12-17 and long-range, anisotropic interactions. These features could enable the exploration of intriguing phases of correlated quantum matter, such as topological superfluids18, quantum spin liquids19, fractional Chern insulators20 and quantum magnets21,22. Probing correlations in these phases is crucial to understanding their properties, necessitating the development of new experimental techniques. Here we use quantum gas microscopy23 to measure the site-resolved dynamics of quantum correlations of polar 23Na87Rb molecules confined in a two-dimensional optical lattice. By using two rotational states of the molecules, we realize a spin-1/2 system with dipolar interactions between particles, producing a quantum spin-exchange model21,22,24,25. We study the evolution of correlations during the thermalization process of an out-of-equilibrium spin system for both spatially isotropic and anisotropic interactions. Furthermore, we examine the correlation dynamics of a spin-anisotropic Heisenberg model engineered from the native spin-exchange model by using periodic microwave pulses26-28. These experiments push the frontier of probing and controlling interacting systems of ultracold molecules, with prospects for exploring new regimes of quantum matter and characterizing entangled states that are useful for quantum computation29,30 and metrology31.

Realization of a Fermi-Hubbard Optical Tweezer Array.

We use lithium-6 atoms in an optical tweezer array to realize an eight-site Fermi-Hubbard chain near half filling. We achieve single site detection by combining the tweezer array with a quantum gas microscope. By reducing disorder in the energy offsets to less than the tunneling energy, we observe Mott insulators with strong antiferromagnetic correlations. The measured spin correlations allow us to put an upper bound on the entropy of 0.26(4)k_{B} per atom, comparable to the lowest entropies achieved with optical lattices. Additionally, we establish the flexibility of the tweezer platform by initializing atoms on one tweezer and observing tunneling dynamics across the array for uniform and staggered 1D geometries.

Two-Dimensional Programmable Tweezer Arrays of Fermions.

We prepare high-filling two-component arrays of tens of fermionic ^{6}Li atoms in optical tweezers, with the atoms in the ground motional state of each tweezer. Using a stroboscopic technique, we configure the arrays in various two-dimensional geometries with negligible Floquet heating. A full spin- and density-resolved readout of individual sites allows us to postselect near-zero entropy initial states for fermionic quantum simulation. We prepare a correlated state in a two-by-two tunnel-coupled Hubbard plaquette, demonstrating all the building blocks for realizing a programmable fermionic quantum simulator.