Experimental Observation of Thermalization with Noncommuting Charges

TitleExperimental Observation of Thermalization with Noncommuting Charges
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2023
AuthorsKranzl, F, Lasek, A, Joshi, MK, Kalev, A, Blatt, R, Roos, CF, Halpern, NYunger
JournalPRX Quantum
Volume4
Date Published4/28/2023
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.

URLhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2202.04652
DOI10.1103/prxquantum.4.020318