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Quantum contact processes on a topological lattice

Julius Bohm1, Richard Schmidt2, Michael Fleischhauer1,3, and Daniel Brady1

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 194303 – Published 16 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/j28r-4nht

Abstract

Contact processes play an important role in classical nonequilibrium dynamics, describing the spreading of diseases, the dynamics of earthquakes and forest fires, and the distribution of information through the internet. Here we show that their quantum counterpart, where the spreading occurs through coherent couplings, displays even richer dynamics and offers new means of control. A quantum contact process on a topologically nontrivial one-dimensional lattice can be confined to a protected subspace corresponding to either a single site or a fully excited lattice. Furthermore, excitation spreading can be controlled to occur in quantized steps and on demand when employing topological pumps. We show that the many-body dynamics of excited domains can be mapped to an effective single-particle model, which also determines the topological properties. Throughout this work, we consider a specific type of contact process corresponding to coherent Rydberg facilitation in a tweezer array of trapped atoms in a one-dimensional lattice.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 194303– Published 16 October, 2026
  • Received 10 April 2026
  • Revised 11 August 2026
  • Accepted 25 September 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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