Recent decades have witnessed great developments in the field of quantum simulation—where synthetic systems are built and studied to gain insight into complicated, many-body real-world problems. Systems of individually controlled neutral atoms, interacting with each other when excited to Rydberg states, have emerged as a promising platform for this task, particularly for the simulation of spin systems. Here, we review the techniques necessary for the manipulation of neutral atoms for the purpose of quantum simulation—such as quantum gas microscopes and arrays of optical tweezers—and explain how the different types of interactions between Rydberg atoms allow a natural mapping onto various quantum spin models. We discuss recent achievements in the study of quantum many-body physics in this platform, and some current research directions beyond that.

最近几十年见证了量子模拟领域的巨大发展，在该领域中，人们建立并研究了合成系统，以洞悉复杂的多体现实世界中的问题。单独控制的中性原子系统在激发到Rydberg态时会相互影响，已成为实现此任务的有希望的平台，特别是对于自旋系统的仿真。在这里，我们回顾了用于量子模拟目的的中性原子操纵所需的技术（例如量子气体显微镜和光镊阵列），并解释了里德堡原子之间不同类型的相互作用如何使自然映射到各种量子自旋上楷模。我们讨论了在该平台上研究量子多体物理学的最新成就，以及超出该领域的一些当前研究方向。