Description

Using the high degree of tunability of our Rydberg spin system, the central goal of project A05 is to explore to which extent a disordered isolated spin system with dipolar interactions exhibits features of a spin glass. The Heisenberg or Ising spin system is represented by two highly-excited electronic (Rydberg) states coupled via van der Waals or resonant dipolar interactions. An additional microwave field acts as an effective transverse and longitudinal external field. We will focus on (1) ergodicity breaking and the possible emergence of a dynamical phase transition by studying the dynamical response of the spin glass, (2) broken time-translation invariance and pair localization by measuring temporal and spatial correlation functions, and (3) modes of transport, in particular localization, by studying the dynamics of spin spiral states.