Rhine Samajdar, Tom Manovitz, Sophie Li, Sepehr Ebadi, Mikhail Lukin and David Huse
Understanding the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a closed quantum system driven across a quantum phase transition is an important problem with widespread implications for quantum state preparation and adiabatic algorithms. While the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism elucidates part of these dynamics, the subsequent and significant coarsening processes lie beyond its scope. Here, we develop a universal description of such coarsening dynamics—and their interplay with the Kibble-Zurek mechanism—in terms of scaling theories. This comprehensive theoretical framework applies to a diverse set of ramp protocols of analog quantum simulators and encompasses various coarsening scenarios involving both quantum and thermal fluctuations. We present detailed experimental results probing such many-body coarsening dynamics using a locally programmable Rydberg-atom quantum simulator. Our results showcase the power of quantum simulation in addressing a tremendously challenging problem, namely, studying the nonequilibrium dynamics of large quantum systems at late times.