Probing ℤ₂ quantum spin liquids using quantum simulators
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Abstract
Quantum spin liquids are phases of matter that have recently gathered significant attention due to their unique properties that cannot be characterized by Landau theory and spontaneuous symmetry breaking. Their ground states lack magnetic ordering, but instead display long-range entanglement and topological order. Despite a wealth of theoretical understandings, the successful and unambiguous detection of quantum spin liquids in natural materials has yet to be claimed. In this dissertation, we provide an alternative path to probe ℤ₂ quantum spin liquid by taking advantage of recent developments in quantum technologies. We address the challenge of realizing the exact ℤ₂ quantum spin liquid states using programmable quantum devices via combinatorial gauge symmetry. We show how to use combinatorial gauge symmetry to simulate a ℤ₂ quantum spin liquid state in a D-Wave quantum annealing device, and present a scheme to attain such state in its classical limit at the endpoint of the quantum annealing protocol. We further address the ambiguity of detecting nontrivial signatures of topological order of ℤ₂ quantum spin liquid due to the prevailing noises and limited types of measurements in the current quantum devices. We henceforth propose a quasi-1D ladder model to detect the fractional statistics of the quasi-particles in ℤ₂ quantum spin liquid. This quasi-1D model permits us to identify quantum spin liquid physics even in the presence of disorder and dissipation. We demonstrate its possible implementations in both analog and digital quantum devices and discuss their limitations.
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2023