Detailed Balance of Thermalization dynamics in Rydberg atom quantum simulators

Abstract: Dynamics of large complex systems, such as relaxation towards equilibrium in classical statistical mechanics, often obeys a master equation. The equation significantly simplifies the complexities but describes essential information of occupation probabilities. A related fundamental question is the thermalization, a coherent evolution of an isolated many-body quantum state into a state that seems to be in thermal equilibrium. It is valuable to find an effective equation describing this complex dynamics. Here, we experimentally investigate the question by observing sudden quench dynamics of quantum Ising-like models implemented in our quantum simulator, defect-free single-atom tweezers in conjunction with Rydberg atom interaction. We find that saturation of local observables, a thermalization signature, obeys a master equation experimentally constructed by time-resolved monitoring the occupation probabilities of prequench states and imposing the principle of the detailed balance. Our experiment agrees with theories, and demonstrates the detailed balance in a thermalization dynamics that does not require coupling to baths or postulated randomness.