Scalable spin squeezing in a dipolar Rydberg atom array.

The standard quantum limit bounds the precision of measurements that can be achieved by ensembles of uncorrelated particles. Fundamentally, this limit arises from the non-commuting nature of quantum mechanics, leading to the presence of fluctuations often referred to as quantum projection noise. Quantum metrology relies on the use of non-classical states of many-body systems to enhance the precision of measurements beyond the standard quantum limit1,2. To do so, one can reshape the quantum projection noise-a strategy known as squeezing3,4. In the context of many-body spin systems, one typically uses all-to-all interactions (for example, the one-axis twisting model4) between the constituents to generate the structured entanglement characteristic of spin squeezing5. Here we explore the prediction, motivated by recent theoretical work6-10, that short-range interactions-and in particular, the two-dimensional dipolar XY model-can also enable the realization of scalable spin squeezing. Working with a dipolar Rydberg quantum simulator of up to N = 100 atoms, we demonstrate that quench dynamics from a polarized initial state lead to spin squeezing that improves with increasing system size up to a maximum of -3.5 ± 0.3 dB (before correcting for detection errors, or roughly -5 ± 0.3 dB after correction). Finally, we present two independent refinements: first, using a multistep spin-squeezing protocol allows us to further enhance the squeezing by roughly 1 dB, and second, leveraging Floquet engineering to realize Heisenberg interactions, we demonstrate the ability to extend the lifetime of the squeezed state by freezing its dynamics.

Scalable Spin Squeezing in Two-Dimensional Arrays of Dipolar Large-S Spins.

We theoretically show that the spin-spin interactions realized in two-dimensional Mott insulators of large-spin magnetic atoms (such as Cr, Er, or Dy) lead to scalable spin squeezing along the nonequilibrium unitary evolution initialized in a coherent spin state. An experimentally relevant perturbation to the collective squeezing dynamics is offered by a quadratic Zeeman shift, which leads instead to squeezing of individual spins. Making use of a truncated cumulant expansion for the quantum fluctuations of the spin array, we show that, for sufficiently small quadratic shifts, the spin squeezing dynamics is akin to that produced by the paradigmatic one-axis-twisting model-as expected from an effective separation between collective-spin and spin-wave variables. Scalable spin squeezing is shown to be protected by the robustness of long-range ferromagnetic order to quadratic shifts in the equilibrium phase diagram of the system that we reconstruct via quantum Monte Carlo and mean-field theory.

Entangling Dynamics from Effective Rotor-Spin-Wave Separation in U(1)-Symmetric Quantum Spin Models.

The nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum spin models is a most challenging topic, due to the exponentiality of Hilbert space, and it is central to the understanding of the many-body entangled states that can be generated by state-of-the-art quantum simulators. A particularly important class of evolutions is the one governed by U(1)-symmetric Hamiltonians, initialized in a state that breaks the U(1) symmetry-the paradigmatic example being the evolution of the so-called one-axis-twisting (OAT) model, featuring infinite-range interactions between spins. In this Letter, we show that the dynamics of the OAT model can be closely reproduced by systems with power-law-decaying interactions, thanks to an effective separation between the zero-momentum degrees of freedom, associated with the so-called Anderson tower of states, and reconstructing an OAT model, as well as finite-momentum ones, associated with spin-wave excitations. This mechanism explains quantitatively the recent numerical observation of spin squeezing and Schrödinger cat-state generation in the dynamics of dipolar Hamiltonians, and it paves the way for the extension of this observation to a much larger class of models of immediate relevance for quantum simulations.

Thermal Critical Dynamics from Equilibrium Quantum Fluctuations.

We show that quantum fluctuations display a singularity at thermal critical points, involving the dynamical z exponent. Quantum fluctuations, captured by the quantum variance [Frérot et al., Phys. Rev. B 94, 075121 (2016)PRBMDO2469-995010.1103/PhysRevB.94.075121], can be expressed via purely static quantities; this in turn allows us to extract the z exponent related to the intrinsic Hamiltonian dynamics via equilibrium unbiased numerical calculations, without invoking any effective classical model for the critical dynamics. These findings illustrate that, unlike classical systems, in quantum systems static and dynamic properties remain inextricably linked even at finite-temperature transitions, provided that one focuses on static quantities that do not bear any classical analog-namely, on quantum fluctuations.

Multipartite Entangled States in Dipolar Quantum Simulators.

The scalable production of multipartite entangled states in ensembles of qubits is a crucial function of quantum devices, as such states are an essential resource both for fundamental studies on entanglement, as well as for applied tasks. Here we focus on the U(1) symmetric Hamiltonians for qubits with dipolar interactions-a model realized in several state-of-the-art quantum simulation platforms for lattice spin models, including Rydberg-atom arrays with resonant interactions. Making use of exact and variational simulations, we theoretically show that the nonequilibrium dynamics generated by this Hamiltonian shares fundamental features with that of the one-axis-twisting model, namely, the simplest interacting collective-spin model with U(1) symmetry. The evolution governed by the dipolar Hamiltonian generates a cascade of multipartite entangled states-spin-squeezed states, Schrödinger's cat states, and multicomponent superpositions of coherent spin states. Investigating systems with up to N=144 qubits, we observe full scalability of the entanglement features of these states directly related to metrology, namely, scalable spin squeezing at an evolution time O(N^{1/3}) and Heisenberg scaling of sensitivity of the spin parity to global rotations for cat states reached at times O(N). Our results suggest that the native Hamiltonian dynamics of state-of-the-art quantum simulation platforms, such as Rydberg-atom arrays, can act as a robust source of multipartite entanglement.

Quantum Critical Behavior of Entanglement in Lattice Bosons with Cavity-Mediated Long-Range Interactions.

We analyze the ground-state entanglement entropy of the extended Bose-Hubbard model with infinite-range interactions. This model describes the low-energy dynamics of ultracold bosons tightly bound to an optical lattice and dispersively coupled to a cavity mode. The competition between on-site repulsion and global cavity-induced interactions leads to a rich phase diagram, which exhibits superfluid, supersolid, and insulating (Mott and checkerboard) phases. We use a slave-boson treatment of harmonic quantum fluctuations around the mean-field solution and calculate the entanglement entropy across the phase transitions. At commensurate filling, the insulator-superfluid transition is signaled by a singularity in the area-law scaling coefficient of the entanglement entropy, which is similar to the one reported for the standard Bose-Hubbard model. Remarkably, at the continuous Z_{2} superfluid-to-supersolid transition we find a critical logarithmic term, regardless of the filling. This behavior originates from the appearance of a roton mode in the excitation and entanglement spectrum, becoming gapless at the critical point, and it is characteristic of collective models.

Scalable Spin Squeezing from Spontaneous Breaking of a Continuous Symmetry.

Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a property of Hamiltonian equilibrium states which, in the thermodynamic limit, retain a finite average value of an order parameter even after a field coupled to it is adiabatically turned off. In the case of quantum spin models with continuous symmetry, we show that this adiabatic process is also accompanied by the suppression of the fluctuations of the symmetry generator-namely, the collective spin component along an axis of symmetry. In systems of S=1/2 spins or qubits, the combination of the suppression of fluctuations along one direction and of the persistence of transverse magnetization leads to spin squeezing-a much sought-after property of quantum states, both for the purpose of entanglement detection as well as for metrological uses. Focusing on the case of XXZ models spontaneously breaking a U(1) [or even SU(2)] symmetry, we show that the adiabatically prepared states have nearly minimal spin uncertainty; that the minimum phase uncertainty that one can achieve with these states scales as N^{-3/4} with the number of spins N; and that this scaling is attained after an adiabatic preparation time scaling linearly with N. Our findings open the door to the adiabatic preparation of strongly spin-squeezed states in a large variety of quantum many-body devices including, e.g., optical-lattice clocks.

Measuring Correlations from the Collective Spin Fluctuations of a Large Ensemble of Lattice-Trapped Dipolar Spin-3 Atoms.

We perform collective spin measurements to study the buildup of two-body correlations between ≈10^{4} spin s=3 chromium atoms pinned in a 3D optical lattice. The spins interact via long range and anisotropic dipolar interactions. From the fluctuations of total magnetization, measured at the standard quantum limit, we estimate the dynamical growth of the connected pairwise correlations associated with magnetization. The quantum nature of the correlations is assessed by comparisons with analytical short- and long-time expansions and numerical simulations. Our Letter shows that measuring fluctuations of spin populations for s>1/2 spins provides new ways to characterize correlations in quantum many-body systems.

Optimal Entanglement Witnesses: A Scalable Data-Driven Approach.

Multipartite entanglement is a key resource allowing quantum devices to outperform their classical counterparts, and entanglement certification is fundamental to assess any quantum advantage. The only scalable certification scheme relies on entanglement witnessing, typically effective only for special entangled states. Here, we focus on finite sets of measurements on quantum states (hereafter called quantum data), and we propose an approach which, given a particular spatial partitioning of the system of interest, can effectively ascertain whether or not the dataset is compatible with a separable state. When compatibility is disproven, the approach produces the optimal entanglement witness for the quantum data at hand. Our approach is based on mapping separable states onto equilibrium classical field theories on a lattice and on mapping the compatibility problem onto an inverse statistical problem, whose solution is reached in polynomial time whenever the classical field theory does not describe a glassy system. Our results pave the way for systematic entanglement certification in quantum devices, optimized with respect to the accessible observables.

Detecting Many-Body Bell Nonlocality by Solving Ising Models.

Bell nonlocality represents the ultimate consequence of quantum entanglement, fundamentally undermining the classical tenet that spatially separated degrees of freedom possess objective attributes independently of the act of their measurement. Despite its importance, probing Bell nonlocality in many-body systems is considered to be a formidable challenge, with a computational cost scaling exponentially with system size. Here we propose and validate an efficient variational scheme, based on the solution of inverse classical Ising problems, which in polynomial time can probe whether an arbitrary set of quantum data is compatible with a local theory; and, if not, it delivers the many-body Bell inequality most strongly violated by the quantum data. We use our approach to unveil new many-body Bell inequalities, violated by suitable measurements on paradigmatic quantum states (the low-energy states of Heisenberg antiferromagnets), paving the way to systematic Bell tests in the many-body realm.

Certifying the Adiabatic Preparation of Ultracold Lattice Bosons in the Vicinity of the Mott Transition.

We present a joint experimental and theoretical analysis to assess the adiabatic experimental preparation of ultracold bosons in optical lattices aimed at simulating the three-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model. Thermometry of lattice gases is realized from the superfluid to the Mott regime by combining the measurement of three-dimensional momentum-space densities with ab initio quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations of the same quantity. The measured temperatures are in agreement with isentropic lines reconstructed via QMC for the experimental parameters of interest, with a conserved entropy per particle of S/N=0.8(1)k_{B}. In addition, the Fisher information associated with this thermometry method shows that the latter is most accurate in the critical regime close to the Mott transition, as confirmed in the experiment. These results prove that equilibrium states of the Bose-Hubbard model-including those in the quantum-critical regime above the Mott transition-can be adiabatically prepared in cold-atom apparatus.

Anomalous Diffusion and Localization in a Positionally Disordered Quantum Spin Array.

Disorder in quantum systems can lead to the disruption of long-range order in the ground state and to the localization of the elementary excitations. Here we exhibit an alternative paradigm, by which disorder preserves long-range order in the ground state, while it localizes the elementary excitations above it, introducing a stark dichotomy between static properties-mostly sensitive to the density of states of excitations-and nonequilibrium dynamical properties-sensitive to the spatial structure of excitations. We exemplify this paradigm with a positionally disordered 2d quantum Ising model with r^{-6} interactions, capturing the internal-state physics of Rydberg-atom arrays. Disorder is found to lead to multifractality and localization of the spin-wave excitations above a ferromagnetic ground state; as a result, the spreading of entanglement and correlations starting from a factorized state exhibits anomalous diffusion with a continuously varying dynamical exponent, interpolating between ballistic and arrested transport. Our findings are directly relevant for the low-energy dynamics in quantum simulators of quantum Ising models with power-law decaying interactions.

Quantum Critical Metrology.

Quantum metrology fundamentally relies upon the efficient management of quantum uncertainties. We show that under equilibrium conditions the management of quantum noise becomes extremely flexible around the quantum critical point of a quantum many-body system: this is due to the critical divergence of quantum fluctuations of the order parameter, which, via Heisenberg's inequalities, may lead to the critical suppression of the fluctuations in conjugate observables. Taking the quantum Ising model as the paradigmatic incarnation of quantum phase transitions, we show that it exhibits quantum critical squeezing of one spin component, providing a scaling for the precision of interferometric parameter estimation which, in dimensions d>2, lies in between the standard quantum limit and the Heisenberg limit. Quantum critical squeezing saturates the maximum metrological gain allowed by the quantum Fisher information in d=∞ (or with infinite-range interactions) at all temperatures, and it approaches closely the bound in a broad range of temperatures in d=2 and 3. This demonstrates the immediate metrological potential of equilibrium many-body states close to quantum criticality, which are accessible, e.g., to atomic quantum simulators via elementary adiabatic protocols.

Multispeed Prethermalization in Quantum Spin Models with Power-Law Decaying Interactions.

The relaxation of uniform quantum systems with finite-range interactions after a quench is generically driven by the ballistic propagation of long-lived quasiparticle excitations triggered by a sufficiently small quench. Here we investigate the case of long-range (1/r^{α}) interactions for a d-dimensional lattice spin model with uniaxial symmetry, and show that, in the regime d<α

Bose glass and Mott glass of quasiparticles in a doped quantum magnet.

The low-temperature states of bosonic fluids exhibit fundamental quantum effects at the macroscopic scale: the best-known examples are Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity, which have been tested experimentally in a variety of different systems. When bosons interact, disorder can destroy condensation, leading to a 'Bose glass'. This phase has been very elusive in experiments owing to the absence of any broken symmetry and to the simultaneous absence of a finite energy gap in the spectrum. Here we report the observation of a Bose glass of field-induced magnetic quasiparticles in a doped quantum magnet (bromine-doped dichloro-tetrakis-thiourea-nickel, DTN). The physics of DTN in a magnetic field is equivalent to that of a lattice gas of bosons in the grand canonical ensemble; bromine doping introduces disorder into the hopping and interaction strength of the bosons, leading to their localization into a Bose glass down to zero field, where it becomes an incompressible Mott glass. The transition from the Bose glass (corresponding to a gapless spin liquid) to the Bose-Einstein condensate (corresponding to a magnetically ordered phase) is marked by a universal exponent that governs the scaling of the critical temperature with the applied field, in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. Our study represents a quantitative experimental account of the universal features of disordered bosons in the grand canonical ensemble.

Auxiliary-Field Monte Carlo Method to Tackle Strong Interactions and Frustration in Lattice Bosons.

We introduce a new numerical technique, the bosonic auxiliary-field Monte Carlo method, which allows us to calculate the thermal properties of large lattice-boson systems within a systematically improvable semiclassical approach, and which is virtually applicable to any bosonic model. Our method amounts to a decomposition of the lattice into clusters, and to an ansatz for the density matrix of the system in the form of a cluster-separable state-with nonentangled, yet classically correlated clusters. This approximation eliminates any sign problem, and can be systematically improved upon by using clusters of growing size. Extrapolation in the cluster size allows us to reproduce numerically exact results for the superfluid transition of hard-core bosons on the square lattice, and to provide a solid quantitative prediction for the superfluid and chiral transition of hardcore bosons on the frustrated triangular lattice.

Entanglement Entropy across the Superfluid-Insulator Transition: A Signature of Bosonic Criticality.

We study the entanglement entropy and entanglement spectrum of the paradigmatic Bose-Hubbard model, describing strongly correlated bosons on a lattice. The use of a controlled approximation-the slave-boson approach-allows us to study entanglement in all regimes of the model (and, most importantly, across its superfluid-Mott-insulator transition) at a minimal cost. We find that the area-law scaling of entanglement-verified in all the phases-exhibits a sharp singularity at the transition. The singularity is greatly enhanced when the transition is crossed at fixed, integer filling, due to a richer entanglement spectrum containing an additional gapless mode, which descends from the amplitude (Higgs) mode of the global excitation spectrum-while this mode remains gapped at the generic (commensurate-incommensurate) transition with variable filling. Hence, the entanglement properties contain a unique signature of the two different forms of bosonic criticality exhibited by the Bose-Hubbard model.

Quantum Correlations, Separability, and Quantum Coherence Length in Equilibrium Many-Body Systems.

Nonlocality is a fundamental trait of quantum many-body systems, both at the level of pure states, as well as at the level of mixed states. Because of nonlocality, mixed states of any two subsystems are correlated in a stronger way than what can be accounted for by considering the correlated probabilities of occupying some microstates. In the case of equilibrium mixed states, we explicitly build two-point quantum correlation functions, which capture the specific, superior correlations of quantum systems at finite temperature, and which are directly accessible to experiments when correlating measurable properties. When nonvanishing, these correlation functions rule out a precise form of separability of the equilibrium state. In particular, we show numerically that quantum correlation functions generically exhibit a finite quantum coherence length, dictating the characteristic distance over which degrees of freedom cannot be considered as separable. This coherence length is completely disconnected from the correlation length of the system-as it remains finite even when the correlation length of the system diverges at finite temperature-and it unveils the unique spatial structure of quantum correlations.

Momentum-Space Correlations of a One-Dimensional Bose Gas.

Analyzing the noise in the momentum profiles of single realizations of one-dimensional Bose gases, we present the experimental measurement of the full momentum-space density correlations ⟨δn_{p}δn_{p^{'}}⟩, which are related to the two-body momentum correlation function. Our data span the weakly interacting region of the phase diagram, going from the ideal Bose gas regime to the quasicondensate regime. We show experimentally that the bunching phenomenon, which manifests itself as super-Poissonian local fluctuations in momentum space, is present in all regimes. The quasicondensate regime is, however, characterized by the presence of negative correlations between different momenta, in contrast to the Bogolyubov theory for Bose condensates, predicting positive correlations between opposite momenta. Our data are in good agreement with ab initio calculations.

Thermometry of cold atoms in optical lattices via artificial gauge fields.

Artificial gauge fields are a unique way of manipulating the motional state of cold atoms. Here we propose the use (practical or conceptual) of artificial gauge fields--obtained, e.g., experimentally via lattice shaking or conceptually via a Galilean transformation--to perform primary noise thermometry of cold atoms in optical lattices, not requiring any form of prior calibration. The proposed thermometric scheme relies on fundamental fluctuation--dissipation relations, connecting the global response to the variation of the applied gauge field and the fluctuation of quantities related to the momentum distribution (such as the average kinetic energy or the average current). We demonstrate gauge-field thermometry for several physical situations, including free fermions and interacting bosons. The proposed approach is extremely robust to quantum fluctuations-even in the vicinity of a quantum phase transition--when it relies on the thermal fluctuations of an emerging classical field, associated with the onset of Bose condensation or chiral order.