Quantum Science with Arrays of Metastable Helium-3 Atoms

The motion of atoms in programmable optical tweezer arrays offers many new opportunities for neutral-atom quantum science. These include inter- and intra-site atom motion for resource-efficient implementations of fermionic and bosonic modes, respectively, as well as tweezer transport for efficient compilation of arbitrary circuits. However, the exploitation of atomic motion for all these purposes and others is limited by the inertia of the atoms. We present a comprehensive architectural blueprint for the use of fermionic metastable helium-3 ( 3 He * ) atoms—the lightest trappable atomic species—in programmable optical tweezer arrays. This includes a concrete analysis of atomic structure considerations as well as Rydberg-mediated interactions. We show that inter-tweezer hopping of 3 He * atoms can be ≳ 3 × faster than previous demonstrations with lithium-6. We also demonstrate a new toolbox for encoding and manipulating qubits directly in the tweezer trap potential, uniquely enabled by the light mass of 3 He * . Finally, we provide several examples of new opportunities for fermionic quantum simulation and computation that leverage the transport and inter-tweezer hopping of 3 He * atom arrays. These tools present new methods to improve the resource efficiency of neutral-atom quantum science that may also enable quantum simulations of lattice gauge theories and quantum chemistry outside the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.