arXiv subjects

Fabio Mezzacapo

Publications and source records attributed to Fabio Mezzacapo.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Universal spin-squeezing dynamics in spinor condensates

The production of large-scale entangled states is one of the main goals of next-generation quantum technologies, with an immediate potential for applications in the context of entanglement-assisted quantum sensing. A very promising platform to achieve this goal is offered by ultracold spinor gases, made of atoms with a large internal spin sensitive to magnetic fields. Here we show that the native spin-changing collisions in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, combined with an arbitrary quadratic Zeeman shift, can generate scalable spin squeezing in the collective spin of the ensemble, following the universal paradigm of the celebrated one-axis-twisting model. Squeezing dynamics is driven by the quadratic Zeeman shift when this shift is small; and by the spin-changing collisions for large shifts, in the form of stroboscopic squeezing. Turning off the Zeeman shift freezes out the collective-spin dynamics, so that the ensuing collective spin dynamics can be uniquely governed by an external field to be sensed. Our theoretical results pave the way for the use of spinor Bose gases with a large spin in fundamental studies of entanglement, as well as in advanced metrological applications.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Scalable spin squeezing from spontaneous breaking of a continuous symmetry

Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is a property of Hamiltonian equilibrium states which, in the thermodynamic limit, retain a finite average value of an order parameter even after a field coupled to it is adiabatically turned off. In the case of quantum spin models with continuous symmetry, we show that this adiabatic process is also accompanied by the suppression of the fluctuations of the symmetry generator -- namely, the collective spin component along an axis of symmetry. In systems of $S=1/2$ spins or qubits, the combination of the suppression of fluctuations along one direction and of the persistence of transverse magnetization leads to spin squeezing -- a much sought-after property of quantum states, both for the purpose of entanglement detection as well as for metrological uses. Focusing on the case of XXZ models spontaneously breaking a U(1) (or even SU(2)) symmetry, we show that the adiabatically prepared states have nearly minimal spin uncertainty; that the minimum phase uncertainty that one can achieve with these states scales as $N^{-3/4}$ with the number of spins $N$; and that this scaling is attained after an adiabatic preparation time scaling linearly with $N$. Our findings open the door to the adiabatic preparation of strongly spin-squeezed states in a large variety of quantum many-body devices including e.g. optical lattice clocks.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Giant number-parity effect and scalable spin squeezing in Luttinger liquids

Finite-size quantum spin systems can be magnetized by the application of a symmetry-breaking field, but in general their symmetry is expected to be restored once the field is turned off adiabatically. Recently (F. Caleca et al., arXiv:2412.15493) we have shown that systems of half-integer spins with an odd number of sites and a parity-preserving Hamiltonian can retain a finite magnetization, hence exhibiting spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) at finite size. Here we generalize this phenomenon to spin chains whose low-energy physics (in zero field) realizes a Luttinger-liquid phase. We observe that odd-sized chains can exhibit a phenomenon of finite-size quasi-SSB, in which a net sub-extensive magnetization, $M \sim N^{1-1/(4K)}$ is retained, where $N$ is the number of sites and $K$ the Luttinger exponent. Interestingly, the states prepared by turning off the symmetry-breaking field quasi-adiabatically display scalable spin squeezing -- namely stronger the bigger the system -- regardless of the parity of $N$. The scaling of the squeezing parameter is dictated again by the Luttinger exponent, $ξ_R^2 \sim N^{-1+1/(2K)}$. This result shows that scalable quantum correlations with metrological significance, associated typically with high-dimensional systems, can be found as well in gapless one-dimensional ones; and they are a direct consequence of the critical nature of Luttinger liquids.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Exponential onset of scalable entanglement via twist-and-turn dynamics in XY models

The efficient preparation of scalable multipartite entanglement is a central goal in the development of next-generation quantum devices. In this work, we show that the so-called ``twist-and-turn" (TaT) dynamics for interacting spin ensembles, generated by Hamiltonians with U(1)-symmetric interactions and with a transverse field, can offer an important resource to reach this goal. For models with sufficiently high connectivity, TaT dynamics exhibits two key features: 1) it features both scalable squeezing at short times, as well as quantum Fisher information with Heisenberg scaling at later times; and 2) scalable multipartite entanglement (up to Heisenberg scaling) is reached in a time growing only logarithmically with system size, associated with an exponential buildup of quantum correlations. These results can be shown exactly in the XY model with a Rabi field and infinite range interactions, and numerically in the case of spatially decaying XY interactions, such as dipolar interactions in two dimensions, provided that unstable spin-wave modes do not develop for large system sizes and/or strong fields. For dipolar interactions, the entanglement dynamics at intermediate times is completely at odds with thermalization; and it appears to saturate the maximum speed of entanglement buildup allowed by Lieb-Robinson bounds generalized to power-law interacting systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Tomonaga-Luttinger Liquid Behavior in a Rydberg-encoded Spin Chain

Quantum fluctuations can disrupt long-range order in one-dimensional systems, and replace it with the universal paradigm of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL), a critical phase of matter characterized by power-law decaying correlations and linearly dispersing excitations. Using a Rydberg quantum simulator, we study how TLL physics manifests in the low-energy properties of a spin chain, interacting under either the ferromagnetic or the antiferromagnetic dipolar XY Hamiltonian. Following quasi-adiabatic preparation, we directly observe the power-law decay of spin-spin correlations in real-space, allowing us to extract the Luttinger parameter. In the presence of an impurity, the chain exhibits tunable Friedel oscillations of the local magnetization. Moreover, by utilizing a quantum quench, we directly probe the propagation of correlations, which exhibit a light-cone structure related to the linear sound mode of the underlying TLL. Our measurements demonstrate the influence of the long-range dipolar interactions, renormalizing the parameters of TLL with respect to the case of nearest-neighbor interactions. Finally, comparison to numerical simulations exposes the high sensitivity of TLLs to doping and finite-size effects.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Giant number-parity effect leading to spontaneous symmetry breaking in finite-size quantum spin models

Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) occurs when a many-body system governed by a symmetric Hamiltonian, and prepared in a symmetry-broken state by the application of a field coupling to its order parameter $O$, retains a finite $O$ value even after the field is switched off. SSB is generally thought to occur only in the thermodynamic limit $N\to \infty$ (for $N$ degrees of freedom). In this limit, the time to restore the symmetry once the field is turned off, either via thermal or quantum fluctuations, is expected to diverge. Here we show that SSB can also be observed in \emph{finite-size} quantum spin systems, provided that three conditions are met: 1) the ground state of the system has long-range correlations; 2) the Hamiltonian conserves the (spin) parity of the order parameter; and 3) $N$ is odd. Using a combination of analytical arguments and numerical results (based on time-dependent variational Monte Carlo and rotor+spin-wave theory), we show that SSB on finite-size systems can be achieved via a quasi-adiabatic preparation of the ground state -- which, in U(1)-symmetric systems, is shown to require a symmetry breaking field vanishing over time scales $τ\sim O(N)$. In these systems, the symmetry-broken state exhibits spin squeezing with Heisenberg scaling.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Non-local quench spectroscopy of fermionic excitations in 1D quantum spin chains

The elementary excitations of quantum spin systems have generally the nature of weakly interacting bosonic quasi-particles, generated by local operators acting on the ground state. Nonetheless in one spatial dimension the nature of the quasiparticles can change radically, since many relevant one-dimensional $S=1/2$ Hamiltonians can be exactly mapped onto models of spinless fermions with local hopping and interactions. Due to the non-local nature of the spin-to-fermion mapping, observing directly the fermionic quasiparticle excitations is impossible using local probes, which are at the basis of all the forms of spectroscopy (such as neutron scattering) traditionally available in condensed matter physics. Here we show theoretically that \emph{quench spectroscopy} for synthetic quantum matter -- which probes the excitation spectrum of a system by monitoring the nonequilibrium dynamics of its correlation functions -- can reconstruct accurately the dispersion relation of fermionic quasiparticles in spin chains. This possibility relies on the ability of quantum simulation experiments to measure non-local spin-spin correlation functions, corresponding to elementary fermionic correlation functions. Our analysis is based on new exact results for the quench dynamics of quantum spin chains; and it opens the path to probe arbitrary quasiparticle excitations in synthetic quantum matter.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Scalable spin squeezing from critical slowing down in short-range interacting systems

Long-range spin-spin interactions are known to generate non-equilibrium dynamics which can squeeze the collective spin of a quantum spin ensemble in a scalable manner, leading to states whose metrologically useful entanglement grows with system size. Here we show theoretically that scalable squeezing can be produced in 2d U(1)-symmetric systems even by short-range interactions, i.e. interactions that at equilibrium do not lead to long-range order at finite temperatures, but rather to an extended, Berezhinski-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) critical phase. If the initial state is a coherent spin state in the easy plane of interactions, whose energy corresponds to a thermal state in the critical BKT phase, the non-equilibrium dynamics exhibits critical slowing down, corresponding to a power-law decay of the collective magnetization in time. This slow decay protects scalable squeezing, whose scaling reveals in turn the decay exponent of the magnetization. Our results open the path to realizing massive entangled states of potential metrological interest in many relevant platforms of quantum simulation and information processing -- such as Mott insulators of ultracold atoms, or superconducting circuits -- characterized by short-range interactions in planar geometries.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Spectroscopy of elementary excitations from quench dynamics in a dipolar XY Rydberg simulator

We use a Rydberg quantum simulator to demonstrate a new form of spectroscopy, called quench spectroscopy, which probes the low-energy excitations of a many-body system. We illustrate the method on a two-dimensional simulation of the spin-1/2 dipolar XY model. Through microscopic measurements of the spatial spin correlation dynamics following a quench, we extract the dispersion relation of the elementary excitations for both ferro- and anti-ferromagnetic couplings. We observe qualitatively different behaviors between the two cases that result from the long-range nature of the interactions, and the frustration inherent in the antiferromagnet. In particular, the ferromagnet exhibits elementary excitations behaving as linear spin waves. In the anti-ferromagnet, spin waves appear to decay, suggesting the presence of strong nonlinearities. Our demonstration highlights the importance of power-law interactions on the excitation spectrum of a many-body system.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Quasicrystalline Bose glass in the absence of disorder and quasidisorder

We study the low-temperature phases of interacting bosons on a two-dimensional quasicrystalline lattice. By means of numerically exact Path Integral Monte Carlo simulations, we show that for sufficiently weak interactions the system is a homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate, which develops density modulations for increasing filling factor. The simultaneous occurrence of sizeable condensate fraction and density modulation can be interpreted as the analogous, in a quasicrystalline lattice, of supersolid phases occurring in conventional periodic lattices. For sufficiently large interaction strength and particle density, global condensation is lost and quantum exchanges are restricted to specific spatial regions. The emerging quantum phase is therefore a Bose Glass, which here is stabilized in the absence of any source of disorder or quasidisorder, purely as a result of the interplay between quantum effects, particle interactions and quasicrystalline substrate. This finding clearly indicates that (quasi)disorder is not essential to observe Bose Glass physics. Our results are of interest for ongoing experiments on (quasi)disorder-free quasicrystalline lattices.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2023

Scalable spin squeezing in a dipolar Rydberg atom array

The standard quantum limit bounds the precision of measurements that can be achieved by ensembles of uncorrelated particles. Fundamentally, this limit arises from the non-commuting nature of quantum mechanics, leading to the presence of fluctuations often referred to as quantum projection noise. Quantum metrology relies on the use of non-classical states of many-body systems in order to enhance the precision of measurements beyond the standard quantum limit. To do so, one can reshape the quantum projection noise -- a strategy known as squeezing. In the context of many-body spin systems, one typically utilizes all-to-all interactions (e.g. the one-axis twisting model) between the constituents to generate the structured entanglement characteristic of spin squeezing. Motivated by recent theoretical work, here we explore the prediction that short-range interactions -- and in particular, the two-dimensional dipolar XY model -- can also enable the realization of scalable spin squeezing. Working with a dipolar Rydberg quantum simulator of up to 100 atoms, we demonstrate that quench dynamics from a polarized initial state lead to spin squeezing that improves with increasing system size up to a maximum of -3.5 dB (prior to correcting for detection errors, or approximately -5 dB after correction). Finally, we present two independent refinements: first, using a multistep spin-squeezing protocol allows us to further enhance the squeezing by approximately 1 dB, and second, leveraging Floquet engineering to realize Heisenberg interactions, we demonstrate the ability to extend the lifetime of the squeezed state by freezing its dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Rotor/spin-wave theory for quantum spin models with U(1) symmetry

The static and dynamics properties of finite-size lattice quantum spin models which spontaneously break a continuous $U(1)$ symmetry in the thermodynamic limit are of central importance for a wide variety of physical systems, from condensed matter to quantum simulation. Such systems are characterized by a Goldstone excitation branch, terminating in a zero mode whose theoretical treatment within a linearized approach leads to divergencies on finite-size systems, revealing that the assumption of symmetry breaking is ill-defined away from the thermodynamic limit. In this work we show that, once all its non-linearities are taken into account, the zero mode corresponds exactly to a U(1) quantum rotor, related to the Anderson tower of states expected in systems showing symmetry breaking in the thermodynamic limit. The finite-momentum modes, when weakly populated, can be instead safely linearized (namely treated within spin-wave theory) and effectively decoupled from the zero mode. This picture leads to an approximate separation of variables between rotor and spin-wave ones, which allows for a correct description of the ground-state and low-energy physics. Most importantly, it offers a quantitative treatment of the finite-size non-equilibrium dynamics -- following a quantum quench -- dominated by the zero mode, for which a linearized approach fails. Focusing on the 2$d$ XX model with power-law decaying interactions, we compare our equilibrium predictions with unbiased quantum Monte Carlo results and exact diagonalization; and our non-equilibrium results with time-dependent variational Monte Carlo. The agreement is remarkable for all interaction ranges, and it improves the longer the range. Our rotor/spin-wave theory defines a successful strategy for the application of spin-wave theory and its extensions to finite-size systems at equilibrium or away from it.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Entangling dynamics from effective rotor/spin-wave separation in U(1)-symmetric quantum spin models

The non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum spin models is a most challenging topic, due to the exponentiality of Hilbert space; and it is central to the understanding of the many-body entangled states that can be generated by state-of-the-art quantum simulators. A particularly important class of evolutions is the one governed by U(1) symmetric Hamiltonians, initialized in a state which breaks the U(1) symmetry -- the paradigmatic example being the evolution of the so-called one-axis-twisting (OAT) model, featuring infinite-range interactions between spins. In this work we show that the dynamics of the OAT model can be closely reproduced by systems with power-law-decaying interactions, thanks to an effective separation between the zero-momentum degrees of freedom, associated with the so-called Anderson tower of states, and reconstructing a OAT model; and finite-momentum ones, associated with spin-wave excitations. This mechanism explains quantitatively the recent numerical observation of spin squeezing and Schrödinger-cat generation in the dynamics of dipolar Hamiltonians; and it paves the way for the extension of this observation to a much larger class of models of immediate relevance for quantum simulations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Multipartite entangled states in dipolar quantum simulators

The scalable production of multipartite entangled states in ensembles of qubits is a fundamental function of quantum devices, as such states are an essential resource both for fundamental studies on entanglement, as well as for applied tasks. Here we focus on the $U(1)$ symmetric Hamiltonians for qubits with dipolar interactions -- a model realized in several state-of-the-art quantum simulation platforms for lattice spin models, including Rydberg-atom arrays with resonant interactions. Making use of exact and variational simulations, we theoretically show that the non-equilibrium dynamics generated by this lattice spin Hamiltonian shares fundamental features with that of the one-axis-twisting model, namely the simplest interacting collective-spin model with $U(1)$ symmetry. The evolution governed by the dipolar Hamiltonian generates a cascade of multipartite entangled states -- spin-squeezed states, Schrödinger's cat states, and multi-component superpositions of coherent spin states. Investigating systems with up to $N=144$ qubits, we observe full scalability of the entanglement features of these states directly related to metrology, namely scalable spin squeezing at an evolution time ${\cal O}(N^{1/3})$; and Heisenberg scaling of sensitivity of the spin parity to global rotations for cat states reached at times ${\cal O}(N)$. Our results suggest that the native Hamiltonian dynamics of state-of-the-art quantum simulation platforms, such as Rydberg-atom arrays, can act as a robust source of multipartite entanglement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Robust spin squeezing from the tower of states of $U(1)$-symmetric spin Hamiltonians

Spin squeezing - a central resource for quantum metrology - can be generated via the non-linear, entangling evolution of an initially factorized spin state. Here we show that robust (i.e. persistent) squeezing dynamics is generated by a very large class of $S=1/2$ spin Hamiltonians with axial symmetry, in relationship with the existence of a peculiar structure of the low-lying Hamiltonian eigenstates - the so-called Anderson's tower of states. Such states are fundamentally related to the appearance of spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum systems; and, for models with sufficiently high connectivity, they are parametrically close to the eigenstates of a planar rotor (Dicke states), in that they feature an anomalously large value of the total angular momentum. Our central insight is that, starting from a coherent spin state, a generic $U(1)$-symmetric Hamiltonian featuring the Anderson's tower of states generates the same squeezing evolution at short times as the one governed by the paradigmatic one-axis-twisting (or planar-rotor) model of squeezing dynamics. The full squeezing evolution of the planar-rotor model is seemingly reproduced for interactions decaying with distance $r$ as $r^{-α}$ when $α< 5d/3$ in $d$ dimensions. Our results connect quantum simulation with quantum metrology by unveiling the squeezing power of a large variety of Hamiltonian dynamics that are currently implemented by different quantum simulation platforms.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Spin squeezing from bilinear spin-spin interactions: two simple theorems

We demonstrate two simple theorems about squeezing induced by bilinear spin-spin interactions that conserve spin parity -- including a vast majority of quantum spin models implemented by state-of-the-art quantum simulators. In particular we show that squeezing captures the first form of quantum correlations which are produced: 1) at equilibrium, by adiabatically turning on the spin-spin interactions starting from a factorized state aligned with an external, arbitrary field; 2) away from equilibrium, by evolving unitarily the same state with the interacting Hamiltonian.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Nonequilibrium scenarios in cluster-forming quantum lattice models

We investigate the out-of-equilibrium physics of monodisperse bosonic ensembles on a square lattice. The effective Hamiltonian description of these systems is given in terms of an extended Hubbard model with cluster-forming interactions relevant to experimental realizations with cold Rydberg-dressed atoms. The ground state of the model, recently investigated in Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 045301 (2019), features, aside from a superfluid and a stripe crystalline phase occurring at small and large interaction strength $V$, respectively, a rare first-order transition between an isotropic and an anisotropic stripe supersolid at intermediate $V$. By means of quantum Monte Carlo calculations we show that the equilibrium crystal may be turned into a glass by simulated temperature quenches and that out-of-equilibrium isotropic (super)solid states may emerge also when their equilibrium counterparts are anisotropic. These out-of-equilibrium states are of experimental interest, their excess energy with respect to the ground state being within the energy window typically accessed in cold atom experiments. We find, after quenching, no evidence of coexistence between superfluid and glassy behavior. Such an absence of superglassiness is qualitatively explained.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Long-Range Entangled-Plaquette States for Critical and Frustrated Quantum Systems on a Lattice

We explore a variational Ansatz for lattice quantum systems -- named long-range entangled-plaquette state -- in which pairs of clusters of adjacent lattice sites are correlated at any distance. The explicit scale-free structure of correlations built in this wave function makes it fit to reproduce critical states with long-range entanglement. The use of complex weights in the Ansatz allows for an efficient optimization of non positive definite states in a fully variational fashion, namely without any additional bias (arising \emph{e.g.} from pre-imposed sign structures) beyond that imposed by the parametrization of the state coefficients. These two features render the Ansatz particularly appropriate for the study of quantum phase transitions in frustrated systems. Moreover, the Ansatz can be systematically improved by increasing the long range plaquette size, as well as by the inclusion of even larger adjacent-site plaquettes. We validate our Ansatz in the case of the XX and Heisenberg chain, and further apply it to the case of a simple, yet paradigmatic model of frustration, namely the $J_1-J_2$ antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain. For this model we provide clear evidence that our trial wave function faithfully describes both the short-range physics (particularly in terms of ground state energy) and the long-range one expressed by the Luttinger exponent, and the central charge of the related conformal field theory, which govern the decay of correlations and the scaling of the entanglement entropy, respectively. Finally we successfully reproduce the incommensurate correlations developing in the system at strong frustration, as a result of the flexible representation of sign (phase) structures via complex weights.

cond-mat.str-el↗