Engineering chiral spin interactions with Rydberg atoms

Abstract: We propose to simulate the anisotropic and chiral Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction with Rydberg atom arrays. The DM Hamiltonian is engineered in a one-dimensional optical lattice or trap array with effective long-range Rydberg spins, interacting indirectly via a mobile mediator Rydberg atom. A host of XXZ and DM Hamiltonians can be simulated with out-of-phase sign periodic coupling strengths; for initial states in a stationary condensate, the DM interaction vanishes. This theory allows for determination of the DM interaction (DMI) vector components from first principles. The inherent anisotropy of the Rydberg-Rydberg interactions, facilitates the DMI coupling to be tuned so as to be comparable to the XXZ interaction. Our results make plausible the formation of non-trivial topological spin textures with Rydberg atom arrays.