Observation of hysteresis in an isolated quantum system of disordered Heisenberg spins

Abstract

We find energy-dependent hysteresis in an isolated Heisenberg quantum spin system, similar to thermomagnetic hysteresis in canonical spin glasses in contact with a thermal reservoir. Analogous to zero-field cooling and field cooling in conventional magnetic materials, an annealing protocol is devised to control the energy in an isolated system. Depending on the strength of disorder, the susceptibilities at zero field bifurcate at a specific energy, which signals the presence of different magnetic regimes. This behavior is apparent both in a numerical simulation by exact diagonalization of the Heisenberg Hamiltonian with twelve particles, as well as in an experiment with thousands of Rydberg atoms representing dipolar interacting quantum spins. The annealing protocols open a new path to explore the energy-dependent phase structure of spin systems at low energies. Our observation of a nonthermal metastable regime might indicate the existence of a phase transition to a novel state of isolated quantum spin systems.