Microscopic parton construction of Rydberg quantum spin liquid

Quantum Spin Liquids (QSL) represent an exotic phase of matter elusive to experiments. One hallmark property is the absence of magnetic spin order even at zero temperature. Despite numerous attempts, the unambiguous experimental confirmation of QSL states remains difficult. In this context, the possibility of realizing QSL physics on Rydberg atom-based quantum simulators has been a promising avenue for investigation [1].



Recently, the existence of a QSL state has been investigated numerically in a system of Rydberg atoms on a honeycomb lattice featuring density-dependent Peierls phases [2]. Later investigations using projective symmetry group arguments [3] confirmed the state to be a chiral spin liquid by comparing ground-states of ansatz Hamiltonians with exact diagonalization results. In this work, we take a different approach, deriving explicitly the mean-field parton Hamiltonian starting from the microscopic Rydberg model. A subsequent variational ansatz yields a more accurate representation of the true Rydberg many-body state.



[1] Semeghini et al., Science 374 (2021)

[2] Ohler et al., Phys. Rev. Res. 5, 013157 (2023)

[3] Tarabunga et al. Phys. Rev. B 108, 075118 (2023)