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arXiv:1306.1266 · Physical Review A

Mesoscopic dipolar quantum crystals

Massimo Boninsegni

Published Jun 5, 2013• 12 citations
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Abstract

The ground state of a two-dimensional, harmonically confined mesoscopic assembly of up to 30 polar molecules is studied by computer simulations. As the strength of the confining trap is increased, clusters evolve from superfluid, to supersolid, to insulating crystals. For strong confinement, the crystalline structure can be predicted based on classical energetics. However, clusters of specific numbers of particles (i.e., $N=12$ and $N=19$) display a nonclassical crystalline structure, stabilized by quantum effects, in an intermediate range of confinement strength. In these cases, coexistence of quantum and classical crystalline configurations is observed at finite temperature.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.87.063604

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The ground state of a two-dimensional, harmonically confined mesoscopic assembly of up to 30 polar molecules is studied by computer simulations. As the strength of the confining trap is increased, clusters evolve from superfluid, to supersolid, to insulating crystals. For strong confinement, the crystalline structure can be predicted based on classical energetics. However, clusters of specific numbers of particles (i.e., N=12N=12N=12 and N=19N=19N=19) display a nonclassical crystalline structure, stabilized by quantum effects, in an intermediate range of confinement strength. In these cases, coexistence of quantum and classical crystalline configurations is observed at finite temperature.
We discuss the realization of mesoscopic phases of dipolar gases relevant to current experiments with cold polar molecules and Rydberg atoms confined to two dimensions. We predict the existence of superfluid clusters, mesoscopic supersolids, and crystals for a small number of trapped particles, with no counterpart in the homogeneous situation. For certain strengths of the dipole-dipole interactions, the stabilization of purely {\it non-classical crystals} by quantum fluctuations is possible. We propose a magnification scheme to detect the spatial structure of these crystalline phases.
Low-temperature properties of harmonically confined two-dimensional assemblies of dipolar bosons are systematically investigated by Monte Carlo simulations. Calculations carried out for different numbers of particles and strengths of the confining potential yield evidence of a quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a crystal-like phase, consistently with what is observed in the homogeneous system. It is found that the crystal phase nucleates in the center of the trap, as the density increases. Bose-Einstein condensation vanishes at T=0T=0T=0 upon entering the crystalline phase, concurrently with the disappearance of the superfluid response.
We investigate the confinement effects on a two-dimensional mesoscopic (particle number N >200) self-assembled dipolar crystal trapped in a harmonic potential. The ground-state wave function and energy are calculated by diagonalizing the position fluctuations to the quadratic order within the strong-interaction limit. We further investigate the crystal-liquid domain wall boundary as well as the system temperature by changing the confinement aspect ratio and/or dipole moment strength. We find that the entropy of a trapped dipolar crystal can be much larger than the entropy in the liquid state at zero dipole moment, indicating a polarization cooling mechanism during the formation of dipolar crystal when the external field is increased adiabatically. Our results therefore have significant application to the experimental preparation of a self-assembled dipolar crystal using ultracold polar molecules.
We investigate the finite-temperature phase diagram of polar molecules confined in a quasi-two-dimensional geometry by a harmonic potential along the polarization axis. We employ quantum Monte Carlo simulations to explore the strongly correlated regime accessible with current experimental setups. By tuning temperature and confinement strength, we identify a rich set of phases, including normal fluid, superfluid, supersolid, cluster crystal, and bilayer crystal states. Our results reveal the emergence of crystallization upon increasing temperature, highlighting the nontrivial role of thermal fluctuations in dipolar systems. In particular, we show that a bilayer crystal with one molecule per lattice site can be stabilized by varying the confinement strength at fixed interaction. Moreover, we show evidence of layering of superfluid states with phase coherence between the two layers. These findings provide insight into the interplay between interactions, confinement, and temperature in low-dimensional dipolar systems, and suggest new directions for engineering quantum phases with ultracold polar molecules.
A mesoscopic system of dipolar bosons trapped by a harmonic potential is considered. The system has a number of physical realizations including dipole excitons, atoms with large dipolar moment, polar molecules, and Rydberg atoms in inhomogeneous electric field. We carry out a diffusion Monte Carlo simulation to define the quantum properties of a two-dimensional system of trapped dipoles at zero temperature. In dimensionless units the system is described by two control parameters, namely, the number of particles and the strength of the interparticle interaction. We have shown that when the interparticle interaction is strong enough a mesoscopic crystal is formed. As the strength of interactions is decreased a multistage melting takes place. Off-diagonal order in the system is tested using natural-orbitals analysis. We have found that the system might be Bose condensed even in the case of strong interparticle interactions. There is a set of parameters for which a spatially ordered structure is formed while simultaneously the fraction of Bose-condensed particles is nonzero. This might be considered as a realization of a mesoscopic supersolid.
In condensed-matter physics, long-range correlations introduce quantum states of matter that challenge intuition. For example, supersolids combine density order that manifests as symmetry-breaking spatial arrangement, and frictionless superfluid flow. However, supersolids have proven to only exist under very stringent conditions, with evidence limited to a few spontaneously fragmented superfluids observed in the weakly-interacting regime. Here, we demonstrate a framework to realize crystalline supersolids in the strong interaction regime, by confining dipolar bosons in a lattice with long-range hopping. We show that dipolar excitons realize this lattice model. At fractional lattice fillings of one quarter, one third and one half we observe mesoscopic quantum crystals across around 100 sites that spontaneously break the lattice translational symmetry. At the same time, coherent long-range hopping induces off-diagonal long-range order such that the exciton solids are superfluids. Our numerical methods quantitatively confirm that supersolidity builds up in the ground-state of the lattice Hamiltonian.