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Published on: November 11, 2013
Shortcuts to Analog Preparation of Nonequilibrium Quantum Lakes
Nik O Gjonbalaj1, Rahul Sahay1, Susanne F Yelin1
1Harvard University, Department of Physics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Abstract:
The dynamical preparation of exotic many-body quantum states is a persistent goal of analog quantum simulation, often limited by experimental coherence times. Recently, it was shown that fast, nonadiabatic Hamiltonian parameter sweeps can create finite-size "lakes" of quantum order in certain settings, independent of what is present in the ground state phase diagram. Here, we show that going further out of equilibrium via external driving can substantially accelerate the preparation of these quantum lakes. Concretely, when lakes can be prepared, existing counterdiabatic driving techniques-originally designed to target the ground state-instead naturally target the lakes state. We demonstrate this both for an illustrative single qutrit and a model of a Z_{2} Rydberg quantum spin liquid. In the latter case, we construct experimental drive sequences that accelerate preparation by almost an order of magnitude at fixed laser power. We conclude by using a Landau-Ginzburg model to provide a semiclassical picture for how our method accelerates state preparation.