  Gauge theories are the cornerstone of our understanding of fundamental
interactions among particles. Their properties are often probed in dynamical
experiments, such as those performed at ion colliders and high-intensity laser
facilities. Describing the evolution of these strongly coupled systems is a
formidable challenge for classical computers, and represents one of the key
open quests for quantum simulation approaches to particle physics phenomena.
Here, we show how recent experiments done on Rydberg atom chains naturally
realize the real-time dynamics of a lattice gauge theory at system sizes at the
boundary of classical computational methods. We prove that the constrained
Hamiltonian dynamics induced by strong Rydberg interactions maps exactly onto
the one of a $U(1)$ lattice gauge theory. Building on this correspondence, we
show that the recently observed anomalously slow dynamics corresponds to a
string-inversion mechanism, reminiscent of the string-breaking typically
observed in gauge theories. This underlies the generality of this slow
dynamics, which we illustrate in the context of one-dimensional quantum
electrodynamics on the lattice. Within the same platform, we propose a set of
experiments that generically show long-lived oscillations, including the
evolution of particle-antiparticle pairs. Our work shows that the state of the
art for quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories is at 51 qubits, and
connects the recently observed slow dynamics in atomic systems to archetypal
phenomena in particle physics
