Observation of a symmetry-protected topological phase of interacting bosons with Rydberg atoms

The concept of topological phases is a powerful framework for characterizing ground states of quantum many-body systems that goes beyond the paradigm of symmetry breaking. Topological phases can appear in condensed-matter systems naturally, whereas the implementation and study of such quantum many-body ground states in artificial matter require careful engineering. Here, we report the experimental realization of a symmetry-protected topological phase of interacting bosons in a one-dimensional lattice and demonstrate a robust ground state degeneracy attributed to protected zero-energy edge states. The experimental setup is based on atoms trapped in an array of optical tweezers and excited into Rydberg levels,…

• EC
  European Commission
• L
  Labex

  Award: ANR-10-LABX-0039-PALM
• ER
  European Research Council

  Award: SIRPOL 681208