Quantum simulation of the Dicke model in a two-dimensional ion crystal: chaos, quantum thermalization, and revivals
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.06114 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 5 Feb 2026] Title:Quantum simulation of the Dicke model in a two-dimensional ion crystal: chaos, quantum thermalization, and revivals Authors:Bryce Bullock, Sean R. Muleady, Jennifer F. Lilieholm, Yicheng Zhang, Robert J. Lewis-Swan, John J. Bollinger, Ana Maria Rey, Allison L. Carter View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum simulation of the Dicke model in a two-dimensional ion crystal: chaos, quantum thermalization, and revivals, by Bryce Bullock and 7 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Quantum many-body systems driven far from equilibrium can exhibit chaos, entanglement, and non-classical correlations, yet directly observing these phenomena in large, closed quantum systems remains challenging. Here we realize the Dicke model -- a fundamental description of light-matter interactions -- in a two-dimensional crystal of approximately 100 trapped ions. The ions' internal state is optically coupled to the center of mass vibrational mode via an optical spin-dependent force, enabling unitary many-body dynamics beyond the mean-field and few-body limits. In the integrable regime, where the phonons can be adiabatically eliminated, we observe a dynamical phase transition between ferromagnetic to paramagnetic spin phases. In contrast, when the spins and phonons are strongly coupled, we observe clear signatures of non-integrable chaotic dynamics, including erratic phase-space trajectories and the exponential growth of excitations and entanglement quantified by the one-body Rényi entropy. By quenching from an unstable fixed point in the near-integrable regime, quantum noise can generate correlated spin-phonon excitations. Our numerical calculations, in clear agreement with experiment, reveal the generation of two-mode spin-phonon squeezing, 2.6 dB below the standard quantum limit (4.6 dB relative to the initial thermal state), followed by generalized vacuum Rabi collapses and revivals. Our results establish large ion crystals as scalable analog quantum simulators of non-equilibrium light-matter dynamics and provide a controlled platform for experimental studies of information scrambling and entanglement in closed many-body systems. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2602.06114 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.06114v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.06114 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Sean Muleady [view email] [v1] Thu, 5 Feb 2026 19:00:01 UTC (3,796 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum simulation of the Dicke model in a two-dimensional ion crystal: chaos, quantum thermalization, and revivals, by Bryce Bullock and 7 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 Change to browse by: 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?)