Magnetic-field control of interactions in alkaline-earth Rydberg atoms and applications to XXZ models
Phys. Rev. A 114, 023315 – Published 17 August, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/c545-f2d2
Abstract
We study the magnetic-field dependence of the interactions between two alkaline-earth(-like) Rydberg atoms, and . Considering the pair of Rydberg states and , we show that the effective Hamiltonian takes the form of an XXZ-type quantum spin model, as in the alkali-atom case [M. Kunimi and T. Tomita, Phys. Rev. A 112, L051301 (2025)]. We find that the behavior of the anisotropy parameter for at zero magnetic field is significantly different from that for other atomic species. This behavior arises from the interplay of strong spin-orbit coupling and the resulting multichannel redistribution of Förster defects in . We systematically calculate the interaction parameters of the XXZ model in the presence of a magnetic field and show that they can be tuned by the field. As applications to quantum many-body problems, we investigate one-dimensional systems in the large-anisotropy regime and show that the folded XXZ model can be realized in systems without fine-tuning of the field. We also investigate two-dimensional square-lattice systems and show that a supersolid phase can emerge in the ground state at the mean-field level.