在连续相变过程中，量子多体系统会展现出复杂的涌现行为。最显著的是，量子临界点处的关联函数以幂律形式衰减，其指数由一组普适性标度指数决定。由于退相干效应、能隙闭合与边界效应的相互交织，通过实验观测这类幂律关联极具挑战。
研究组利用里德堡量子模拟器，绝热地制备了一维环状结构与二维正方晶格的临界基态。通过引入单一唯象长度尺度来表征并调控量子系统的开放特性，可直接观测到幂律关联行为并提取出相应的标度指数。这项工作与近期采用基布尔-祖雷克机制和数字量子电路研究量子临界性的方案形成了有效互补。
附：英文原文
Title: Probing critical phenomena in open quantum systems using atom arrays
Author: Fang Fang, Kenneth Wang, Vincent S. Liu, Yu Wang, Ryan Cimmino, Julia Wei, Marcus Bintz, Avery Parr, Jack Kemp, Kang-Kuen Ni, Norman Y. Yao
Issue&Volume: 2025-11-06
Abstract: At continuous phase transitions, quantum many-body systems exhibit complex, emergent behavior. Most notably, at a quantum critical point, correlations decay as a power law, with exponents determined by a set of universal scaling dimensions. Experimentally probing such power law correlations is extremely challenging, owing to the interplay between decoherence, the vanishing energy gap, and boundary effects. In this work, we used a Rydberg quantum simulator to adiabatically prepare critical ground states of both a one-dimensional ring and a two-dimensional square lattice. By accounting for and tuning the openness of our quantum system, which is well-captured by a single phenomenological length scale, we directly observed power law correlations and extracted the corresponding scaling dimensions. Our work complements recent studies of quantum criticality that use the Kibble-Zurek mechanism and digital quantum circuits.
DOI: adq0278
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq0278