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Experimental observation of thermalization with noncommuting charges
- Source :
- Phys. Rev. X Quantum 4, 020318 (2023)
- Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- Quantum simulators have recently enabled experimental observations of quantum many-body systems' internal thermalization. Often, the global energy and particle number are conserved, and the system is prepared with a well-defined particle number - in a microcanonical subspace. However, quantum evolution can also conserve quantities, or charges, that fail to commute with each other. Noncommuting charges have recently emerged as a subfield at the intersection of quantum thermodynamics and quantum information. Until now, this subfield has remained theoretical. We initiate the experimental testing of its predictions, with a trapped-ion simulator. We prepare 6-21 spins in an approximate microcanonical subspace, a generalization of the microcanonical subspace for accommodating noncommuting charges, which cannot necessarily have well-defined nontrivial values simultaneously. We simulate a Heisenberg evolution using laser-induced entangling interactions and collective spin rotations. The noncommuting charges are the three spin components. We find that small subsystems equilibrate to near a recently predicted non-Abelian thermal state. This work bridges quantum many-body simulators to the quantum thermodynamics of noncommuting charges, whose predictions can now be tested.<br />Comment: 6.5 pages (3 figures) + appendices (10 pages); increased system size to 21 qubits; updated to match the version published in PRX Quantum
- Subjects :
- Quantum Physics
Condensed Matter - Statistical Mechanics
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Journal :
- Phys. Rev. X Quantum 4, 020318 (2023)
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.2202.04652
- Document Type :
- Working Paper
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.020318