Author(s): Abhijat Sarma, Nayan Myerson-Jain, Yue Liu, Nandagopal Manoj, Jason Alicea, Roger G. Melko, and Cenke Xu Snapshots—i.e., projective measurements of local degrees of freedom—are the most standard data taken in experiments on quantum simulators, usually to probe local physics. In this Letter we propose a simple protocol to experimentally probe physics of defects with these snapshots. Our protocol relies … [Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 020603] Published Wed Jan 14, 2026