Towards explorations of Rydberg synthetic dimensions in potassium atom tweezer arrays

Neutral atoms in optical tweezer arrays are a promising platform for analog quantum simulation and quantum information science. Here we present progress towards a controllable quantum simulator based on the engineering of synthetic dimensions in the Rydberg states of potassium atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays. In one-dimensional tweezer arrays, we demonstrate efficient loading and cooling of potassium atoms down to 4 uK based on molasses cooling in 0.25 mK traps followed by adiabatic trap depth ramping to 40 uK, and we show evidence of coherent two-photon excitation of the atoms from their atomic ground state to Rydberg states with n = 62. We further explore the engineering of a synthetic dimension spanned by the internal Rydberg levels of the atoms, controlled directly by a tunable spectrum of applied microwaves. This unique platform is expected to host new many-body phases associated with the competition between dipolar Rydberg-Rydberg interactions and microwave-driven hopping in the synthetic dimension.