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Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains
String breaking is a central dynamical process in theories featuring confinement, where a string connecting two charges decays at the expense of the creation of new particle-antiparticle pairs. Here, we show that this process can also be observed in quantum Ising chains where domain walls get confin...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8201416/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34131609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.102.014308 |
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author | Verdel, Roberto Liu, Fangli Whitsitt, Seth Gorshkov, Alexey V. Heyl, Markus |
author_facet | Verdel, Roberto Liu, Fangli Whitsitt, Seth Gorshkov, Alexey V. Heyl, Markus |
author_sort | Verdel, Roberto |
collection | PubMed |
description | String breaking is a central dynamical process in theories featuring confinement, where a string connecting two charges decays at the expense of the creation of new particle-antiparticle pairs. Here, we show that this process can also be observed in quantum Ising chains where domain walls get confined either by a symmetry-breaking field or by long-range interactions. We find that string breaking occurs, in general, as a two-stage process. First, the initial charges remain essentially static and stable. The connecting string, however, can become a dynamical object. We develop an effective description of this motion, which we find is strongly constrained. In the second stage, which can be severely delayed due to these dynamical constraints, the string finally breaks. We observe that the associated timescale can depend crucially on the initial separation between domain walls and can grow by orders of magnitude by changing the distance by just a few lattice sites. We discuss how our results generalize to one-dimensional confining gauge theories and how they can be made accessible in quantum simulator experiments such as Rydberg atoms or trapped ions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8201416 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82014162021-06-14 Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains Verdel, Roberto Liu, Fangli Whitsitt, Seth Gorshkov, Alexey V. Heyl, Markus Phys Rev B Article String breaking is a central dynamical process in theories featuring confinement, where a string connecting two charges decays at the expense of the creation of new particle-antiparticle pairs. Here, we show that this process can also be observed in quantum Ising chains where domain walls get confined either by a symmetry-breaking field or by long-range interactions. We find that string breaking occurs, in general, as a two-stage process. First, the initial charges remain essentially static and stable. The connecting string, however, can become a dynamical object. We develop an effective description of this motion, which we find is strongly constrained. In the second stage, which can be severely delayed due to these dynamical constraints, the string finally breaks. We observe that the associated timescale can depend crucially on the initial separation between domain walls and can grow by orders of magnitude by changing the distance by just a few lattice sites. We discuss how our results generalize to one-dimensional confining gauge theories and how they can be made accessible in quantum simulator experiments such as Rydberg atoms or trapped ions. 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC8201416/ /pubmed/34131609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.102.014308 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society. |
spellingShingle | Article Verdel, Roberto Liu, Fangli Whitsitt, Seth Gorshkov, Alexey V. Heyl, Markus Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains |
title | Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains |
title_full | Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains |
title_fullStr | Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains |
title_full_unstemmed | Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains |
title_short | Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains |
title_sort | real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8201416/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34131609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.102.014308 |
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