Tricritical Kibble-Zurek scaling in Rydberg atom ladders

Hanteng Wang, Xingyu Li and Chengshu Li ()
Additional contact information
Hanteng Wang: Tsinghua University, Institute for Advanced Study
Xingyu Li: Tsinghua University, Institute for Advanced Study
Chengshu Li: Tsinghua University, Institute for Advanced Study

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract The Kibble–Zurek (KZ) mechanism has been extensively studied in various second-order phase transitions, yet the case of tricriticality—the point where second-order phase transition lines terminate—remains experimentally elusive. Here, we theoretically propose probing KZ scaling at tricritical points using Rydberg atom arrays arranged as two- and three-leg ladders, which realize the tricritical Ising and tricritical Potts universality classes. By slowly ramping the Rabi frequency and detuning, we extract two relevant tricritical exponents, ν and ν', both via conventional paths from the disordered to the ordered phase and via “tangential” paths confined entirely within the disordered phase. At faster speeds, ramping dynamics go beyond the standard KZ paradigm: data collapse analysis using the parent critical exponents (rather than the tricritical ones) reveals renormalization group flows toward the adjacent second-order critical line, and we identify it as a dynamical analog of Zamolodchikov’s c-theorem. Our protocol is readily implementable on existing Rydberg quantum simulators. This provides a direct route to measuring distinct tricritical exponents which can reveal an emergent spacetime supersymmetry constraint 1/ν − 1/ν' = 1. Moreover, this work deepens our theoretical understanding and opens new avenues for exploring beyond-KZ quantum dynamics with rich renormalization group structure.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65652-9 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-65652-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-65652-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().