Experimental demonstration of a quantum anomaly induced by borders

Abstract

Quantum phase transitions, being in charge of the property of matter, are normally induced by varying the Hamiltonian and are characterized by an avoided level crossing between the ground and an excited state. Recently, a quantum phase anomaly induced by a boundary is predicted theoretically as the number of sites $N$ goes to infinity in a one-dimensional Heisenberg spin $XY$ model without an external magnetic field. The infinite-size lattice apparently is inaccessible in experiment, which prevents the experimental observation of the theoretical prediction. In this paper, we find that the finite-size odd-sited lattice can also give the infinite-size lattice's ground-state behavior, and successfully observe such a critical anomaly between two phases having topologically different boundary conditions for the Mott insulator in a finite-size photonic lattice.