Real-time nonequilibrium dynamics of an analog to QCD string breaking realized in a one-dimensional quantum Ising chain whose spins couple to local vibrational (phonon) modes. A pair of domain walls acts as a confined particle-antiparticle pair joined by a gauge string; coupling each spin to its own harmonic mode (a spin-boson/Holstein-type interaction) modifies how the string breaks. Weak coupling slows the breaking relative to an isolated Ising string, while strong coupling dissolves the domain-wall character among many hybridized spin-phonon states. Motivated by Rydberg-atom-in-tweezer and trapped-ion quantum simulators.
This paper studies real-time string-breaking dynamics in a one-dimensional quantum (transverse-field) Ising chain in which each spin is coherently coupled to its own local vibrational (phononic) mode…