Arrays of Rydberg atoms have appeared as a remarkably rich playground to study quantum phase transitions in one dimension. One of the biggest puzzles that was brought forward in this context are chiral phase transitions out of density waves. Theoretically predicted chiral transition out of period-four phase is still pending experimental verification mainly due to the extremely short interval over which this transition is realized in a single-component Rydberg array. In my talk I will show that multicomponent Rydberg arrays with extra experimentally tunable parameters provide a mechanism to manipulate quantum critical properties without breaking translation symmetry explicitly. I will introduce an effective blockade model of two component Rydberg atoms. Weak and strong components obey nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor blockades correspondingly. When laser detuning is applied to either of the two components the system is in the period-3 and period-2 phases. But detuning simultaneously applied to both components stabilizes the period-4 phase partly bounded by the chiral transition. I will show that the relative ratio of the Rabi frequencies of the two components tunes the properties of the conformal Ashkin-Teller point and allows us to manipulate an extent of the chiral transition. The prospects of multicomponent Rydberg arrays in the context of critical fusion will be briefly discussed.
Reference: N. Chepiga, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 076505 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.076505