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Quantum catalysis of magnetic phase transitions in a quantum simulator
P Richerme1, C Senko1, S Korenblit1
1Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland Department of Physics and National Institute of Standards and Technology, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
Abstract:
We control quantum fluctuations to create the ground state magnetic phases of a classical Ising model with a tunable longitudinal magnetic field using a system of 6 to 10 atomic ion spins. Because of the long-range Ising interactions, the various ground state spin configurations are separated by multiple first-order phase transitions, which in our zero temperature system cannot be driven by thermal fluctuations. We instead use a transverse magnetic field as a quantum catalyst to observe the first steps of the complete fractal devil's staircase, which emerges in the thermodynamic limit and can be mapped to a large number of many-body and energy-optimization problems.
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