Breakdown of Aharonov-Bohm cage in Rydberg synthetic lattices: the roles of inhomogeneity and long-range exchange

Abstract:While the interaction-induced breakdown of Aharonov-Bohm (AB) cage is typically attributed to uniform bound-pair transport, systems with inhomogeneous exchange interactions realized with Rydberg synthetic lattices exhibit more complex dynamics. Employing the evolution-path symmetry (EPS) framework developed recently, we analyze the two-particle dynamics via path interference in Fock space. We find that a homogeneous nearest-neighbor exchange interaction cannot break the AB cage, regardless of whether the long-range exchange interaction is present or not. In contrast, we demonstrate that inhomogeneous nearest-neighbor exchange interaction breaks the destructive-interference EPS, and lifts the degeneracy of many-body compact localized states, thereby generating non-local dispersive eigenstates. Consequently, the initial state gains a non-zero overlap with these dispersive states, enabling delocalized transport. Furthermore, while long-range exchange interaction alone preserves the AB cage, its coupling with nearest-neighbor inhomogeneous exchange interaction opens non-canceling pathways that alter the diffusion profile. Our work connects microscopic path interference with macroscopic spectral reorganization, offering an analytical understanding of the mechanism underlying exchange-interaction-induced transport in Rydberg synthetic lattices.

Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

arXiv:2608.21768 [cond-mat.quant-gas]

(or arXiv:2608.21768v1 [cond-mat.quant-gas] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.21768 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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