Many elusive quantum phenomena emerge from the interaction of a quantum system with its classical environment. Quantum simulators enable us to program this interaction by using measurement operations. Measurements generally remove part of the quantum entanglement built between the qubits inside a simulator. While in simple cases entanglement may disappear at a constant rate as we measure qubits one by one, the evolution of entanglement under measurements for a given class of quantum states is generally unknown. Here, we show that consecutive measurements of the qubits in a quantum simulator can lead to criticality, separating two phases of entanglement. We prepare an entangled superposition of ground states to a classical spin model and show that progressively measuring the qubits drives the simulator into a spin glass phase of entanglement. By entangling and measuring up to 48 qubits in this fashion, we determine the vitrification point and its critical exponent, which obey spin glass theory exactly. Our findings show that measurements alone can trigger entanglement criticality and suggest that coupling to a classical environment can drive critical phenomena in more general quantum states.
University of California, Santa Barbara（加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校）；California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学）；Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics（理论物理前沿研究所）
Quantum criticality and nonequilibrium dynamics on a Lieb lattice of Rydberg atoms
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）；University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）；University of Toronto（多伦多大学）；QuEra Computing Inc.（QuEra计算公司）；Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）
Quantum criticality and factorization in a constrained Rydberg spin chain
School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学系统科学学院）；Center for the Cross-disciplinary Research of Space Science and Quantum-technologies (CROSS-Q), College of Physics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics（南京航空航天大学物理学院空间科学与量子技术交叉研究中心）；National Key Laboratory of Scattering and Radiation（散射与辐射国家重点实验室）
Perturbative Renormalization and Universality Diagram for Long-Range Quantum Criticality
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Hefei National Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China（合肥国家实验室，中国科学技术大学）；Shanghai Research Center for Quantum Science and CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China（上海量子科学研究与创新中心及中国科学院量子信息与量子物理卓越中心，中国科学技术大学）；Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China（微尺度物质科学国家研究中心及物理科学学院，中国科学技术大学）；CAS Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所理论物理重点实验室）
Topological Phase Transitions and Mixed State Order in a Hubbard Quantum Simulator
Harvard University（哈佛大学）；Indiana University（印第安纳大学）；ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics（天体物理与物质理论研究联盟，哈佛-史密森天体物理中心）；Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago（芝加哥大学普里茨克分子工程学院）
QC-PHAST Search: Classical--Quantum Query Benchmarks for Finite-Pool Rare-Regime Discovery
Department of Computer Science（计算机科学系）；College of Natural Sciences（自然科学学院）；The University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）；Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences（计算工程与科学奥登研究所）
Universal Driven Critical Dynamics of Entanglement Entropy
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics & Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Magnetoelectric Physics and Devices, Sun Yat-Sen University（中山大学）；School of physics, Sun Yat-Sen University（中山大学物理学院）
