Abstract: Today’s programmable quantum simulators offer versatile platforms for exploring many-body phases and dynamics in correlated quantum systems. In this talk, we present some new—and surprising—insights into nonequilibrium quantum dynamics inspired by such recent experimental advances. First, we focus on understanding the evolution of closed quantum systems driven through a phase transition, which is crucial for quantum state preparation and adiabatic algorithms. While the Kibble-Zurek mechanism only provides a partial description of this process, here, we develop a universal framework for quantum coarsening dynamics, applicable to diverse ramp protocols, addressing the emergence of long-range order in fundamentally out-of-equilibrium settings. In the second part of this talk, we examine the spin dynamics of the one-dimensional Heisenberg model. Our analysis of magnetization transfer probabilities challenges the conjectured Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality of spin transport, leading to the identification of alternative dynamic universality classes. Moreover, we propose a scalable protocol for measuring such full counting statistics, applicable to experiments or tensor-network simulations. Finally, we will discuss experimental observations of all these results in current "synthetic" quantum systems such as arrays of neutral atoms and superconducting qubits.
Host: Garnett Bryant (garnettb@umd.edu)