Quantum science with arrays of metastable helium-3 atoms
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2601.06763 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 11 Jan 2026] Title:Quantum science with arrays of metastable helium-3 atoms Authors:Zheyuan Li, Rupsa De, Rishi Sivakumar, William Huie, Hao-Tian Wei, Justin D. Piel, Chris H. Greene, Kaden R. A. Hazzard, Zoe Z. Yan, Jacob P. Covey View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum science with arrays of metastable helium-3 atoms, by Zheyuan Li and 9 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:The motion of atoms in programmable optical tweezer arrays offers many new opportunities for neutral atom quantum science. These include inter- and intra-site atom motion for resource-efficient implementations of fermionic and bosonic modes, respectively, as well as tweezer transport for efficient compilation of arbitrary circuits. However, the exploitation of atomic motion for all three purposes and others is limited by the inertia of the atoms. We present a comprehensive architectural blueprint for the use of fermionic metastable helium-3 ($^3$He$^*$) atoms -- the lightest trappable atomic species -- in programmable optical tweezer arrays. This includes a concrete analysis of atomic structure considerations as well as Rydberg-mediated interactions. We show that inter-tweezer hopping of $^3$He$^*$ atoms can be $\gtrsim3\times$ faster than previous demonstrations with lithium-6. We also demonstrate a new toolbox for encoding and manipulating qubits directly in the tweezer trap potential, uniquely enabled by the light mass of $^3$He$^*$. Finally, we provide several examples of new opportunities for fermionic quantum simulation and computation that leverage the transport and inter-tweezer hopping of $^3$He$^*$ atom arrays. These tools present new methods to improve the resource efficiency of neutral atom quantum science that may also enable quantum simulations of lattice gauge theories and quantum chemistry outside the Born-Oppenheimer approximation Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2601.06763 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2601.06763v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.06763 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Covey Lab [view email] [v1] Sun, 11 Jan 2026 03:43:02 UTC (2,481 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum science with arrays of metastable helium-3 atoms, by Zheyuan Li and 9 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?)