Ding Dongsheng, Bai Zhengyang, Liu Zongkai, Shi Baosen, Guo Guangcan, Li Weibin, Adams C Stuart
Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Sci Adv. 2024 Mar;10(9):eadl5893. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adl5893. Epub 2024 Mar 1.
It is challenging to probe ergodicity breaking trends of a quantum many-body system when dissipation inevitably damages quantum coherence originated from coherent coupling and dispersive two-body interactions. Rydberg atoms provide a test bed to detect emergent exotic many-body phases and nonergodic dynamics where the strong Rydberg atom interaction competes with and overtakes dissipative effects even at room temperature. Here, we report experimental evidence of a transition from ergodic toward ergodic breaking dynamics in driven-dissipative Rydberg atomic gases. The broken ergodicity is featured by the long-time phase oscillation, which is attributed to the formation of Rydberg excitation clusters in limit cycle phases. The broken symmetry in the limit cycle is a direct manifestation of many-body collective effects, which is verified experimentally by tuning atomic densities. The reported result reveals that Rydberg many-body systems are a promising candidate to probe ergodicity breaking dynamics, such as limit cycles, and enable the benchmark of nonequilibrium phase transition.
当耗散不可避免地破坏源于相干耦合和色散两体相互作用的量子相干性时，探究量子多体系统的遍历性破缺趋势具有挑战性。里德堡原子提供了一个测试平台，用于检测涌现的奇异多体相和非遍历动力学，即使在室温下，强里德堡原子相互作用也能与耗散效应竞争并超越耗散效应。在此，我们报告了驱动耗散里德堡原子气体中从遍历向遍历破缺动力学转变的实验证据。遍历性破缺的特征是长时间的相位振荡，这归因于极限环相中里德堡激发簇的形成。极限环中的对称性破缺是多体集体效应的直接表现，通过调节原子密度进行了实验验证。所报道的结果表明，里德堡多体系统是探究遍历性破缺动力学（如极限环）的有前途的候选者，并能够为非平衡相变提供基准。
