Experimental Realization of the Rabi-Hubbard Model with Trapped Ions

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 128; no. 16; p. 160504
• Main Authors: Mei, Q-X, Li, B-W, Wu, Y-K, Cai, M-L, Wang, Y, Yao, L, Zhou, Z-C, Duan, L-M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 22-04-2022
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.160504

Quantum simulation provides important tools in studying strongly correlated many-body systems with controllable parameters. As a hybrid of two fundamental models in quantum optics and in condensed matter physics, the Rabi-Hubbard model demonstrates rich physics through the competition between local spin-boson interactions and long-range boson hopping. Here, we report an experimental realization of the Rabi-Hubbard model using up to 16 trapped ions and present a controlled study of its equilibrium properties and quantum dynamics. We observe the ground-state quantum phase transition by slowly quenching the coupling strength, and measure the quantum dynamical evolution in various parameter regimes. With the magnetization and the spin-spin correlation as probes, we verify the prediction of the model Hamiltonian by comparing theoretical results in small system sizes with experimental observations. For larger-size systems of 16 ions and 16 phonon modes, the effective Hilbert space dimension exceeds 2^{57}, whose dynamics is intractable for classical supercomputers.