Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system
Understanding and probing phase transitions in non-equilibrium systems is an ongoing challenge in physics. A particular instance are phase transitions that occur between a non-fluctuating absorbing phase, e.g., an extinct population, and one in which the relevant order parameter, such as the populat...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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American Physical Society
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47683/ |
| _version_ | 1848797604915183616 |
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| author | Gutiérrez, Ricardo Simonelli, Cristiano Archimi, Matteo Castellucci, Francesco Arimondo, Ennio Ciampini, Donatella Marcuzzi, Matteo Lesanovsky, Igor Morsch, Oliver |
| author_facet | Gutiérrez, Ricardo Simonelli, Cristiano Archimi, Matteo Castellucci, Francesco Arimondo, Ennio Ciampini, Donatella Marcuzzi, Matteo Lesanovsky, Igor Morsch, Oliver |
| author_sort | Gutiérrez, Ricardo |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Understanding and probing phase transitions in non-equilibrium systems is an ongoing challenge in physics. A particular instance are phase transitions that occur between a non-fluctuating absorbing phase, e.g., an extinct population, and one in which the relevant order parameter, such as the population density, assumes a finite value. Here we report the observation of signatures of such a non-equilibrium phase transition in an open driven quantum system. In our experiment rubidium atoms in a quasi one-dimensional cold disordered gas are laser-excited to Rydberg states under so-called facilitation conditions. This conditional excitation process competes with spontaneous decay and leads to a crossover between a stationary state with no excitations and one with a finite number of excitations. We relate the underlying physics to that of an absorbing state phase transition in the presence of a field (i.e. off-resonant excitation processes) which slightly offsets the system from criticality. We observe a characteristic power-law scaling of the Rydberg excitation density as well as increased fluctuations close to the transition point. Furthermore, we argue that the observed transition relies on the presence of atomic motion which introduces annealed disorder into the system and enables the formation of long-ranged correlations. Our study paves the road for future investigations into the largely unexplored physics of non-equilibrium phase transitions in open many-body quantum systems. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:06:31Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-47683 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:06:31Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | American Physical Society |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-476832020-05-04T19:11:15Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47683/ Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system Gutiérrez, Ricardo Simonelli, Cristiano Archimi, Matteo Castellucci, Francesco Arimondo, Ennio Ciampini, Donatella Marcuzzi, Matteo Lesanovsky, Igor Morsch, Oliver Understanding and probing phase transitions in non-equilibrium systems is an ongoing challenge in physics. A particular instance are phase transitions that occur between a non-fluctuating absorbing phase, e.g., an extinct population, and one in which the relevant order parameter, such as the population density, assumes a finite value. Here we report the observation of signatures of such a non-equilibrium phase transition in an open driven quantum system. In our experiment rubidium atoms in a quasi one-dimensional cold disordered gas are laser-excited to Rydberg states under so-called facilitation conditions. This conditional excitation process competes with spontaneous decay and leads to a crossover between a stationary state with no excitations and one with a finite number of excitations. We relate the underlying physics to that of an absorbing state phase transition in the presence of a field (i.e. off-resonant excitation processes) which slightly offsets the system from criticality. We observe a characteristic power-law scaling of the Rydberg excitation density as well as increased fluctuations close to the transition point. Furthermore, we argue that the observed transition relies on the presence of atomic motion which introduces annealed disorder into the system and enables the formation of long-ranged correlations. Our study paves the road for future investigations into the largely unexplored physics of non-equilibrium phase transitions in open many-body quantum systems. American Physical Society 2017-10-09 Article PeerReviewed Gutiérrez, Ricardo, Simonelli, Cristiano, Archimi, Matteo, Castellucci, Francesco, Arimondo, Ennio, Ciampini, Donatella, Marcuzzi, Matteo, Lesanovsky, Igor and Morsch, Oliver (2017) Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system. Physical Review A, 96 (4). 041602(R)/1-041602(R)/6. ISSN 2469-9934 https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.96.041602 doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.96.041602 doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.96.041602 |
| spellingShingle | Gutiérrez, Ricardo Simonelli, Cristiano Archimi, Matteo Castellucci, Francesco Arimondo, Ennio Ciampini, Donatella Marcuzzi, Matteo Lesanovsky, Igor Morsch, Oliver Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system |
| title | Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system |
| title_full | Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system |
| title_fullStr | Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system |
| title_full_unstemmed | Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system |
| title_short | Experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system |
| title_sort | experimental signatures of an absorbing-state phase transition in an open driven many-body quantum system |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47683/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47683/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47683/ |