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arXiv:2104.01068 · Physical Review Research

Supersolid edge and bulk phases of a dipolar quantum gas in a box

S. M. Roccuzzo, S. Stringari, Alessio Recati

Published Feb 3, 2022• 26 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate the novel density distributions acquired by a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensed gas confined in a box potential, with special focus on the effects of supersolidity. Different from the case of harmonic trapping, the ground-state density reveals a strong depletion in the bulk region and an accumulation of atoms near the walls, well separated from the bulk, as a consequence of the competition between the attractive and the repulsive nature of the dipolar force. In a quasi-two-dimensional geometry characterized by cylindrical box trapping, we observe the emergence of a ringlike configuration near the boundary of the box, revealing peculiar supersolid and crystal effects in a useful range of parameters. In the case of square box trapping, the density oscillations along the edges, caused by the enhanced accumulation of atoms near the vertices, exhibit interesting analogies with the case of box-trapped quasi-one-dimensional configurations. For sufficiently large values of the atom number, the bulk region can also exhibit supersolidity, the resulting geometry reflecting the symmetry of the confining potential even for large systems.

DOI
10.1103/physrevresearch.4.013086

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We investigate the novel density distributions acquired by a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensed gas confined in a box potential, with special focus on the effects of supersolidity. Different from the case of harmonic trapping, the ground-state density reveals a strong depletion in the bulk region and an accumulation of atoms near the walls, well separated from the bulk, as a consequence of the competition between the attractive and the repulsive nature of the dipolar force. In a quasi-two-dimensional geometry characterized by cylindrical box trapping, we observe the emergence of a ringlike configuration near the boundary of the box, revealing peculiar supersolid and crystal effects in a useful range of parameters. In the case of square box trapping, the density oscillations along the edges, caused by the enhanced accumulation of atoms near the vertices, exhibit interesting analogies with the case of box-trapped quasi-one-dimensional configurations. For sufficiently large values of the atom number, the bulk region can also exhibit supersolidity, the resulting geometry reflecting the symmetry of the confining potential even for large systems.
Confinement can have a considerable effect on the behavior of particle systems and is therefore an effective way to discover new phenomena. A notable example is a system of identical bosons at low temperature under an external field mimicking an isotropic bubble trap, which constrains the particles to a portion of space close to a spherical surface. Using path integral Monte Carlo simulations, we examine the spatial structure and superfluid fraction in two emblematic cases. First, we look at soft-core bosons, finding the existence of supersolid cluster arrangements with polyhedral symmetry; we show how different numbers of clusters are stabilized depending on the trap radius and the particle mass, and we characterize the temperature behavior of the cluster phases. A detailed comparison with the behavior of classical soft-core particles is provided too. Then, we examine the case, of more immediate experimental interest, of a dipolar condensate on the sphere, demonstrating how a quasi-one-dimensional supersolid of clusters is formed on a great circle for realistic values of density and interaction parameters. Crucially, this supersolid phase is only slightly disturbed by gravity. We argue that the predicted phases can be revealed in magnetic traps with spherical-shell geometry, possibly even in a lab on Earth. Our results pave the way for future simulation studies of correlated quantum systems in curved geometries.
We study the interplay between the anisotropy of the dipole-dipole interaction and confinement in a curved geometry by means of the extended Gross-Pitaevskii equation, which allows us to characterize the ground state of a dipolar Bose gas under the confinement of a bubble trapping potential. We do so in terms of the scattering length a and the number of particles. We observe the emergence of a wide variety of dipolar solids, consisting on arrangements of different number of droplets along a ring over the equator of the spherical shell confinement. We also show that the transition between the different phases of the system can be engineered by varying a , the number of particles or the radius of the trap, parameters, which can be experimentally tuned. Finally, we show the importance of working in microgravity conditions as gravity unstabilizes the observed dipolar solids. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Supersolids are exotic quantum states in which long-range phase coherence coexists, and may interplay, with emergent spatial orders. A particularly rich phase diagram featuring several competing spatial orders is predicted for dipolar supersolids with two-dimensional crystals, yet the experimental observation of this structural variety has remained limited. Here we experimentally form competing triangular and stripe density-modulated states in a quantum gas of highly magnetic atoms confined in a surfboard-shaped trap by tuning contact interaction strength and dipole orientation. We define a structural order parameter and study its statistical behavior. Thereby, we identify both the triangular and stripe phases and the transition between them, the associated critical behavior being marked by enhanced non-Gaussian fluctuations. Furthermore, we observe each spatial structure in both the phase-coherent supersolid regime and the phase-incoherent insulating one, near and far from the unmodulated-to-modulated transition, respectively. Our results establish a versatile platform in which multiple phases of the two-dimensional-supersolid phase diagram, and more generally, intertwined symmetry-breaking phenomena, can be investigated.
We investigate the crystalline stationary states of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate in a planar trapping geometry. Our focus is on the ground state phase diagram in the thermodynamic limit, where triangular, honeycomb and stripe phases occur. We introduce a rigorous method to quantify the superfluidity of these states by analysing their nonclassical translational inertia, which allows us to identify favourable parameter regimes for observing supersolid ground states. The resulting superfluid fraction is a rank-2 tensor which is isotropic for the triangular and honeycomb states but anisotropic for the stripe case. We develop two simplified theories to approximately describe the ground states, and consider the relationship to roton softening in the uniform ground state. This also allows us to extend the phase diagram to the low density regime.
We present numerical studies of Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical box trap. The box trap is modeled by using Gaussian-wall or hard-wall trapping potentials along the boundary of the box to mimic a recent experimental setup. In order to study a quasi-one-dimensional system, the Gaussian walls are separated differently along the axial and radial directions. Furthermore, the two-body interaction is described by a hard-sphere potential, whose radius equals the sss-wave scattering length. Using a finite-temperature path integral Monte Carlo method, we have calculated the density profiles of the system as a function of the temperature, the strength of the two-body interaction, and the number of particles. Our numerical results show clearly the Tonks-gas--like behavior in the strong interaction limit. In addition, we have compared our numerical data with the experimental data and theoretical results, and found that our simulation data agree with them quantitatively.
Distinctive features of supersolids show up in their rotational properties. We calculate the moment of inertia of a harmonically trapped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensed gas as a function of the tunable scattering length parameter, providing the transition from the (fully) superfluid to the supersolid phase and eventually to an incoherent crystal of self-bound droplets. The transition from the superfluid to the supersolid phase is characterized by a jump in the moment of inertia, revealing its first order nature. In the case of elongated trapping in the plane of rotation, we show that the moment of inertia determines the value of the frequency of the scissors mode, which is significantly affected by the reduction of superfluidity in the supersolid phase. The case of an in-plane isotropic trapping is instead well suited to study the formation of quantized vortices, which are shown to be characterized, in the supersolid phase, by a sizeable deformed core, caused by the presence of the surrounding density peaks.