@article {1270, title = {Quantum Catalysis of Magnetic Phase Transitions in a Quantum Simulator}, journal = {Physical Review Letters}, volume = {111}, year = {2013}, month = {2013/9/5}, abstract = { We control quantum fluctuations to create the ground state magnetic phases of a classical Ising model with a tunable longitudinal magnetic field using a system of 6 to 10 atomic ion spins. Due to the long-range Ising interactions, the various ground state spin configurations are separated by multiple first-order phase transitions, which in our zero temperature system cannot be driven by thermal fluctuations. We instead use a transverse magnetic field as a quantum catalyst to observe the first steps of the complete fractal devil{\textquoteright}s staircase, which emerges in the thermodynamic limit and can be mapped to a large number of many-body and energy-optimization problems. }, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.100506}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.6983v2}, author = {Philip Richerme and Crystal Senko and Simcha Korenblit and Jacob Smith and Aaron Lee and Rajibul Islam and Wesley C. Campbell and Christopher Monroe} }