Dirac spin liquid in dipolar Rydberg arrays

Abstract: Pull an atom's electron far (~100 nm) from its nucleus, and you will get a large electric dipole. In this talk, I will discuss what can happen if you do this to 100+ atoms trapped in an optical tweezer array, where the dipole-dipole interactions manifest as a long-range spin-1/2 XY model. My focus will be on the ensuing many-body ground state physics: on the kagome lattice, numerical calculations indicate this dipolar XY model naturally yields a gapless Dirac spin liquid. This is a quantum critical phase of matter representing a strongly-interacting, (2+1)-dimensional version of relativistic quantum electrodynamics, with emergent fermions. I will show how one can efficiently prepare the Dirac spin liquid in state-of-the-art dipolar Rydberg atom array experiments, and discuss prospects and challenges for its near-term characterization.