Daniel González-Cuadra, Torsten V. Zache, Boris Braverman, Alexei Bylinskii, Milan Kornjaca, Fangli Liu, Shengtao Wang, Mikhail Lukin and Peter Zoller
Simulating the real-time dynamics of lattice gauge theories remains a formidable computational challenge. Although quantum simulators can tackle this problem more efficiently than classical devices, experiments have so far been restricted to 1D, leaving the more challenging but also richer higher-dimensional cases unexplored. In this talk, I will show how the latter can be readily addressed using Rydberg atom arrays. In particular, I will show how a Kagome lattice of Rydberg atoms in optical tweezers gives rise to an emergent 2D gauge theory, where U(1) gauge fields mediate interactions between scalar matter fields. Moreover, in this setup long-range Rydberg interactions confine matter particles, connected by strings of gauge-field excitations, into mesonic bound states. This mechanism allows us to investigate dynamical string breaking in 2D, where gauge-field fluctuations are driven by effective plaquette interactions. Our quantum simulation protocol is based on adiabatic state preparation followed by global quench dynamics, that we benchmarked using tensor-network methods. Finally, I will show some preliminary experimental results where string states were prepared using QuEra’s Rydberg quantum simulator.