Er-Dy Scientific News

Category for scientific news of the Er-Dy group

Vortices in a dipolar supersolid

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Now published in Nature!

In an internal collaboration between the Er-Dy Lab and the Theory subgroup, our new pre-print reveals a fundamental difference in vortex nucleation between the unmodulated superfluid and the modulated 2D supersolid phase of dipolar BECs. This work builds on our previous investigation of vortices in dipolar gases (see our writeups here and here) and of supersolids with two-dimensional crystalline order (see our writeup here). This opens the door to study the hydrodynamic properties of exotic quantum systems with multiple spontaneously broken symmetries, ranging from quantum crystals to neutron stars — for a general overview of the connection between glitches in the supersolid and neutron stars, see our writeup here.

See the article in Nature here: Observation of vortices in a dipolar supersolid

Read the pre-print here: arXiv:2403.18510.

Read the feature by Quanta Magazine here: Physicists spot quantum tornadoes twirling in a supersolid

Der Suprafestkörper: a popular science article on the dipolar supersolid!

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imageIf you have been searching for a high-level overview of the dipolar supersolid phase, look no further than this open access article by Prof. Francesca Ferlaino and Dr. Manfred Mark! Newly published in the journal “Physik in unserer Zeit”, this German language primer lays out the historical background, newly discovered properties and open questions which remain about this paradoxical quantum phase. See the full article below:

Ferlaino, F. and Mark, M.J. (2024), Der Suprafestkörper. Phys. Unserer Zeit. https://doi.org/10.1002/piuz.202301692

Investigating vortices in dipolar quantum gases

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Following our recent experimental observation of vortices in Bose-Einstein condensates comprised of atoms with inherent long-range dipole-dipole interactions [Nat. Phys. 18, 1453-1458 (2022)], we thoroughly investigate vortex properties in the three-dimensional dominantly dipolar regime, where beyond-mean-field effects are crucial for stability, and investigate the interplay between trap geometry and magnetic field tilt angle. Last year, Jean Dalibard was awarded with the most prestigious French prize for physicists, the CNRS Gold medal, and this work is our contribution to a Special Issue honouring his many contributions to the field of ultracold atoms, and in particular his work on quantum vortices. See the full collection here: CNRS Gold Medal Jean Dalibard (academie-sciences.fr).

See the pre-print here: arXiv:2303.13263, and the now published paper here: C. R. Phys.

A ship-in-a-bottle quantum gas microscope

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Quantum gas microscopes are versatile and powerful tools to investigate lattice systems down to the single atom level. Here we present a quantum gas microscopy setup for experiments with highly magnetic atoms of the lanthanoid elements erbium and dysprosium. Our setup features a quartz glass cell, enclosed by a compact multi-shell ferromagnetic shield. Inside, a non-magnetic, non-conducting, large-working-distance, high-numerical-aperture, in-vacuum microscope objective will enable single-site imaging of our strongly dipolar atomic mixture.

See the pre-print here: arXiv:2306.05404

Heating a liquid into a… solid?!

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Raising the temperature of a material enhances the thermal motion of particles. Such an increase in thermal energy commonly leads to the melting of a solid into a fluid and eventually vaporises the liquid into a gaseous phase of matter. Here, together with theorists from Aarhus, Denmark, we study the finite-temperature physics of dipolar quantum fluids and find surprising deviations from this general phenomenology. In particular, we describe how heating a dipolar superfluid from near-zero temperatures can induce a phase transition to a supersolid state with a broken translational symmetry. The predicted effect agrees with our experimental measurements from the Er-Dy, which opens the door for exploring the unusual thermodynamics of dipolar quantum fluids.



See the pre-print here: arXiv:2209.00335 and the published paper here: Nature Communications (2023)

Review of recent experiments with dipolar gases

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The last 15 years has seen tremendous experimental progress for the manipulation and control of ultracold atoms with sizeable dipole-dipole interactions. In this review, together with other group leaders who first condensed dysprosium and chromium, we review the discoveries made so far, and lay out the future perspectives for this exciting field!

The paper can be found here: Dipolar physics: a review of experiments with magnetic quantum gases – IOPscience

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