Composite spin approach to the blockade effect in Rydberg atom arrays

Abstract

The Rydberg blockade induces strongly correlated many-body effects in Rydberg atom arrays, including rich ground-state phases and many-body scar states in the excitation spectrum. In this Letter, we propose a composite spin representation that can provide a unified description for major features in this system. The composite spin combines Rydberg excitation and the auxiliary fermions, which are introduced to implement the Rydberg blockade constraint automatically. First, we focus on the PXP model describing one-dimensional arrays with the Rydberg blocking radius being a lattice spacing. Using composite spins, the ground state is simply a polarized product state of composite spins, and the magnon excitations of these composite spins can accurately describe the many-body scar states and signal the quantum phase transition driven by detuning. Then, we show that Rydberg atom arrays with different blocking radii can share a universal description in terms of the composite spin representation, and the difference between different blockade radii can be absorbed in the formation of composite spins. Hence, our scheme provides a universal physical picture of the blockade effect in Rydberg atom arrays.