Probing false vacuum decay and bubble nucleation in a Rydberg atom array

In quantum field theory (QFT), the "vacuum" is not just empty space but the lowest-energy state of a quantum field. If the energy landscape has multiple local minima, the local ground states are the false vacuum (FV) which can tunnel towards the global ground state (true vacuum, TV). This process exhibits signature akin to classical supercooled gas transitions and many-body tunneling in discrete quantum systems. Here, we study the FV decay and bubble nucleation in a Rydberg atom ring. The long-range van-der-Waals interactions and individual-site addressability allow us to explore physics beyond the standard Ising model. We observe that the FV decay rate decreases exponentially with the inverse of the symmetry-breaking field, directly mirroring QFT predictions. Moreover, we demonstrate that even minor deviations from the ideal metastable state can cause a stark departure from this universal scaling law. Extending beyond short-time decay dynamics, we also examine resonant bubble nucleation, a feature distinctive to systems with discrete energy spectra. Our findings and methods open avenues for future studies of many-body tunneling in higher dimensions or more complex geometries.