Spatiotemporal dynamics of particle collisions in quantum spin chains

Recent developments have highlighted the potential of quantum spin models to realize the phenomenology of confinement leading to the formation of bound states such as mesons. In this work we show that Ising chains also provide a platform to realize and probe particle collisions in pristine form with the key advantage that one can not only monitor the asymptotic particle production, but also the whole spatiotemporal dynamics of the collision event. We study both elastic and inelastic collisions between different kinds of mesons and also more complex bound states of mesons, which one can interpret as an analog of exotic particles such as the tetraquark in quantum chromodynamics. We argue that our results not only apply to the specific studied spin model, but can be readily extended to lattice gauge theories in a more general context. As the considered Ising chains admit a natural realization in various quantum simulator platforms, it is a key implication of this work that particle collisions therefore become amenable within current experimental scope. Concretely, we discuss a potentially feasible implementation in systems of Rydberg atoms.