2025/12/26 by S. Spielman, Spielman, Sarah E., Sage M. Thomas +19
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.22110
We use dynamical quantum typicality to predict the thermal equilibrium state of ultracold Rydberg atoms exchanging energy via long-range dipole-dipole interactions. We excite atoms to the center of a manifold of nearly-harmonically spaced clusters of Stark energy levels and then allow them to equilibrate. Comparing the equilibrium state to our thermal prediction across a range of Rydberg densities, we find that this system generally fails to thermalize, though it approaches the thermal state at the highest tested density. This is the first direct comparison of a dynamical quantum typicality calculation to experiment.