Creation of Dipolar Quantum Mixtures of Erbium and Dysprosium

@article{IlzhoeferPhD,
  title = {Creation of Dipolar Quantum Mixtures of Erbium and Dysprosium},
  author = {Ilzhoefer, Philipp},
  journal = {PhD Thesis},
  year = {2020},
  month = {Nov},
  abstract = {Over the past two decades, ultracold atom systems and especially ultracold quantum
gas experiments underwent a steep progression curve and emerged as highly versatile
experimental platforms. Rapid technological advances opened new paths to a large variety
of different experimental techniques allowing nowadays not only for a high degree of
control at the quantum level but also for the investigation of the most complex elements
within the periodic table of elements. Recently, the highly magnetic lanthanoids erbium
and dysprosium, the most magnetic element of all, moved into focus, as both introduce
the magnetic dipole-dipole interaction, a long-range anisotropic interaction, to those
highly controllable experimental platforms via their intrinsically large magnetic moments.
This PhD thesis presents the first experimental apparatus for heteronuclear quantumdegenerate
dipolar mixtures of erbium and dysprosium. Its structure follows the developments
over approximately five years from this endeavor´s very beginning in early
2015 to the achievement of a state-of-the-art system in the field of dipolar quantum
gases today. Following a comparison of both elements´ experimentally relevant physical
and atomic properties as well as the theoretical description of a (heteronuclear) dipolar
Bose-Einstein condensate, it reviews the complete layout of the experimental apparatus
and the obtained results in three chapters.
First, it covers a dual-species intercombination-line magneto-optical trap in a novel opentop
configuration as starting point for all further experimental steps. This encompasses
a detailed description of the ultra-high-vacuum apparatus, the magnetic field systems as
well as the laser systems and their integration to the experimental apparatus.
Second, it addresses the production of five different heteronuclear dipolar Bose-Einstein
condensates and of one quantum-degenerate Bose-Fermi mixture via evaporative cooling in
an optical dipole trap. The experimental results revealed complex evaporation dynamics
due to sympathetic cooling as well as first evidence for in-trap interspecies interactions
between the Bose-Einstein condensates of erbium and dysprosium.
Third, it presents its contributions to the first experimental realization of supersolid
phases in dipolar quantum gases of erbium and dysprosium in early 2019. Among the
ground-breaking work in three different research groups, it contributed the achievement
of a supersolid phase in a dipolar quantum gas of dysprosium with long lifetimes and
the direct evaporative cooling into it, and, in a second study, insights into the phase
coherence dynamics of an out-of-equilibrium dysprosium supersolid.
This PhD thesis concludes with a summary of the achieved results and provides an
outlook at upgrades to the experimental apparatus, next characterization measurements
and first experiments with quantum-degenerate dipolar mixtures of erbium and dysprosium.
Further, it discusses prospects for multivalent Rydberg atoms, as the complex
valence electron configurations of lanthanoids might facilitate novel Rydberg manipulation
methods. For this purpose, this PhD work developed a dedicated science module.},
  url = {http://www.erbium.at/FF/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Dissertation_Ilzhoefer_Philipp.pdf},
}