Experimental observation of conformal field theory spectra
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2601.16275 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 22 Jan 2026] Title:Experimental observation of conformal field theory spectra Authors:Xiangkai Sun, Yuan Le, Stephen Naus, Richard Bing-Shiun Tsai, Lewis R. B. Picard, Sara Murciano, Michael Knap, Jason Alicea, Manuel Endres View a PDF of the paper titled Experimental observation of conformal field theory spectra, by Xiangkai Sun and 8 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Conformal field theories (CFTs) feature prominently in high-energy physics, statistical mechanics, and condensed matter. For example, CFTs govern emergent universal properties of systems tuned to quantum phase transitions, including their entanglement, correlations, and low-energy excitation spectra. Much of the rich structure predicted by CFTs nevertheless remains unobserved in experiment. Here we directly observe the energy excitation spectra of emergent CFTs at quantum phase transitions -- recovering universal energy ratios characteristic of the underlying field theories. Specifically, we develop and implement a modulation technique to resolve a Rydberg chain's finite-size spectra, variably tuned to quantum phase transitions described by either Ising or tricritical Ising CFTs. We also employ local control to distinguish parities of excitations under reflection and, in the tricritical Ising chain, to induce transitions between distinct CFT spectra associated with changing boundary conditions. By utilizing a variant of the modulation technique, we furthermore study the dynamical structure factor of the critical system, which is closely related to the correlation of an underlying Ising conformal field. Our work not only probes the emergence of CFT features in a quantum simulator, but also provides a technique for diagnosing a priori unknown universality classes in future experiments. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2601.16275 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2601.16275v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.16275 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Xiangkai Sun [view email] [v1] Thu, 22 Jan 2026 19:12:47 UTC (6,020 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Experimental observation of conformal field theory spectra, by Xiangkai Sun and 8 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-01 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.quant-gas physics physics.atom-ph References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)