Since the achievement of quantum degeneracy in gases of chromium atoms in 2004, the experimental investigation of ultracold gases made of highly magnetic atoms has blossomed. The field has yielded the observation of many unprecedented phenomena, in particular those in which long-range and anisotropic dipole-dipole interactions (DDIs) play a crucial role. In this review, we aim to present the aspects of the magnetic quantum-gas platform that make it unique for exploring ultracold and quantum physics as well as to give a thorough overview of experimental achievements. Highly magnetic atoms distinguish themselves by the fact that their electronic ground-state configuration possesses a large electronic total angular momentum. This results in a large magnetic moment and a rich electronic transition spectrum. Such transitions are useful for cooling, trapping, and manipulating these atoms. The complex atomic structure and large dipolar moments of these atoms also lead to a dense spectrum of resonances in their two-body scattering behaviour. These resonances can be used to control the interatomic interactions and, in particular, the relative importance of contact over dipolar interactions. These features provide exquisite control knobs for exploring the few- and many-body physics of dipolar quantum gases. The study of dipolar effects in magnetic quantum gases has covered various few-body phenomena that are based on elastic and inelastic anisotropic scattering. Various many-body effects have also been demonstrated. These affect both the shape, stability, dynamics, and excitations of fully polarised repulsive Bose or Fermi gases. Beyond the mean-field instability, strong dipolar interactions competing with slightly weaker contact interactions between magnetic bosons yield new quantum-stabilised states, among which are self-bound droplets, droplet assemblies, and supersolids. Dipolar interactions also deeply affect the physics of atomic gases with an internal degree of freedom as these interactions intrinsically couple spin and atomic motion. Finally, long-range dipolar interactions can stabilise strongly correlated excited states of 1D gases and also impact the physics of lattice-confined systems, both at the spin-polarised level (Hubbard models with off-site interactions) and at the spinful level (XYZ models). In the present manuscript, we aim to provide an extensive overview of the various related experimental achievements up to the present.
Since the achievement of quantum degeneracy in gases of chromium atoms in 2004, the experimental investigation of ultracold gases made of highly magnetic atoms has blossomed. The field has yielded the observation of many unprecedented phenomena, in particular those in which long-range and anisotropic dipole-dipole interactions (DDIs) play a crucial role. In this review, we aim to present the aspects of the magnetic quantum-gas platform that make it unique for exploring ultracold and quantum physics as well as to give a thorough overview of experimental achievements. Highly magnetic atoms distinguish themselves by the fact that their electronic ground-state configuration possesses a large electronic total angular momentum. This results in a large magnetic moment and a rich electronic transition spectrum. Such transitions are useful for cooling, trapping, and manipulating these atoms. The complex atomic structure and large dipolar moments of these atoms also lead to a dense spectrum of resonances in their two-body scattering behaviour. These resonances can be used to control the interatomic interactions and, in particular, the relative importance of contact over dipolar interactions. These features provide exquisite control knobs for exploring the few- and many-body physics of dipolar quantum gases. The study of dipolar effects in magnetic quantum gases has covered various few-body phenomena that are based on elastic and inelastic anisotropic scattering. Various many-body effects have also been demonstrated. These affect both the shape, stability, dynamics, and excitations of fully polarised repulsive Bose or Fermi gases. Beyond the mean-field instability, strong dipolar interactions competing with slightly weaker contact interactions between magnetic bosons yield new quantum-stabilised states, among which are self-bound droplets, droplet assemblies, and supersolids. Dipolar interactions also deeply affect the physics of atomic gases with an internal degree of freedom as these interactions intrinsically couple spin and atomic motion. Finally, long-range dipolar interactions can stabilise strongly correlated excited states of 1D gases and also impact the physics of lattice-confined systems, both at the spin-polarised level (Hubbard models with off-site interactions) and at the spinful level (XYZ models). In the present manuscript, we aim to provide an extensive overview of the various related experimental achievements up to the present.
Dipolar quantum gases, encompassing atoms and molecules with significant dipole moments, exhibit unique long-range and anisotropic dipole-dipole interactions (DDI), distinguishing them from systems dominated by short-range contact interactions. This review explores their behavior across dimensions, focusing on magnetic atoms in quasi-2D in comparison to 3D. In 3D, strong DDI leads to phenomena like anisotropic superfluidity, quantum droplets stabilized by Lee-Huang-Yang corrections, and supersolid states with density modulations. In 2D, we discuss a new scenario where DDI induces angle-dependent Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions and potential supersolidity, as suggested by recent experimental realizations of strongly dipolar systems in quasi-2D geometries. We identify key challenges for future experimental and theoretical work on strongly dipolar 2D systems. The review concludes by highlighting how these unique 2D dipolar systems could advance fundamental research as well as simulate novel physical phenomena.
Interactions between particles play an important role in quantum degenerate gases.\nIn fact, the system’s behavior is usually largely determined by the strength, range, and\nsymmetry of the interactions, even if very weak. For more than two decades after the\nfirst experimental realization of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in 1995, investigations of ultracold atomic gases have mainly considered contact-type interactions, which\nmodel the short-range van der Waals interactions between the atoms in terms of a single\nparameter, the s-wave scattering length. However, some atomic or molecules species\npossess a magnetic or electric dipole moment and additionally interact among each\nother via the dipole-dipole interaction (DDI), which is long-ranged and anisotropic.\nSignatures of the DDI have been first observed in a BEC of chromium atoms in 2005.\nIn the last several years, a new class of atoms from the lanthanide series, e.g., dysprosium and erbium, with stronger dipolar properties, have come into play. This permits\na more full-fledged study of dipolar effects in BECs. Furthermore, ultracold molecules\nand highly excited Rydberg atoms are other promising examples for futures studies of\nsystems where dipolar interaction will be even more dominant, but they still need experimental efforts to achieve the desired quantum regime. Whereas the weak DDI in a\nchromium BEC is well described with the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, stronger dipolar\ninteractions certainly necessitate a beyond-mean-field description within a Bogoliubov\ntheory.\nIn parallel to research on bosons, cold fermions also trigger great interest because\nthey are actually often found in nature, e.g., within the electron gas of metals, as\nneutrons of heavy stars, or as quarks in plasmas as constituent elements of composite particles. Contrary to Bose systems, quantum degeneracy in experiments is much\nmore difficult to achieve in Fermi systems, since s-wave scattering is absent between\nidentical fermions, due to the Pauli exclusion principle. It was first achieved in 1999\nfor alkali atoms using a technique based on the sympathetic cooling with a second spin\nstate, another species, or a different isotope. For highly magnetic atoms, quantum degeneracy was achieved for dysprosium in 2012 using the standard sympathetic cooling\ntechnique, while in 2014 erbium was cooled deep into the degenerate regime using a\ndirect evaporative cooling mediated by dipolar collisions. This direct cooling scheme\nivallows producing very dense Fermi gas down to 10% of the Fermi temperature.\nFurthermore, a novel kind of strongly dipolar quantum gases became available in\nthe last several years. These are weakly bound polar molecules produced from atoms\nwith large magnetic dipole moments, such as erbium. Only very recently a quantum\ndegenerate dipolar Fermi gas of potassium-rubidium molecules has been experimentally realized. Unlike previously considered magnetic systems, heteronuclear molecules\nsuch as potassium-rubidium possess large electric dipole moments. The next natural\nstep is to polarize this system in a preferential direction by an external electric field,\nsuch that the DDI dominates the behavior of the system, which would open up the\nrealm for experimental investigation of strong dipolar Fermi gases...
Recent experimental breakthroughs in trapping, cooling and controlling ultracold gases of polar molecules, magnetic and Rydberg atoms have paved the way toward the investigation of highly tunable quantum systems, where anisotropic, long-range dipolar interactions play a prominent role at the many-body level. In this article we review recent theoretical studies concerning the physics of such systems. Starting from a general discussion on interaction design techniques and microscopic Hamiltonians, we provide a summary of recent work focused on many-body properties of dipolar systems, including: weakly interacting Bose gases, weakly interacting Fermi gases, multilayer systems, strongly interacting dipolar gases and dipolar gases in 1D and quasi-1D geometries. Within each of these topics, purely dipolar effects and connections with experimental realizations are emphasized.
We report on experiments exploring the physics of dipolar quantum gases using a Chromium Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). By means of a Feshbach resonance, it is possible to reduce the effects of short range interactions and reach a regime where the physics is governed by the long-range, anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction between the large (6μB) magnetic moments of Chromium atoms. Several dramatic effects of the dipolar interaction are observed: the usual inversion of ellipticity of the condensate during time-of flight is inhibited, the stability of the dipolar gas depends strongly on the trap geometry, and the explosion following the collapse of an unstable dipolar condensate displays d-wave like features.
This thesis discusses the experiments on 2D dipolar Bose gas of ultracold erbium atoms. Long-range and anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction induces complex orders in quantum many-body systems. Highly magnetic lanthanide atoms such as dysprosium and erbium have the largest magnetic moment in the periodic table, which has attracted significant attention in the past decades. Starting from quantum degenerate dysprosium and erbium atoms, exotic phases like quantum droplets, supersolid, dipolar quantum solid in the Hubbard regime have been studied. However, the 2D dipolar superfluid still remains understudied, despite being theoretically discussed for over two decades. Although tremendous theoretical proposals predict different phenomena in 2D dipolar superfluids, our first interest is to know how the superfluidity emerges in the 2D dipolar gases at finite temperatures. Our observations suggest that the superfluid transition can be well described by the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition with an effective contact interaction as a function of dipolar orientation. With the 2D dipolar superfluid with strong DDI, we characterized the elementary excitation of the matter: the collective breathing mode. Our measurements establish how the competition between local and nonlocal interaction in strongly dipolar 2D superfluid retains quasi-scale invariance or strongly breaks scale invariance. By further searching the interaction parameters, we created stripes with global coherence, which are the first supersolid stripes in 2D. Experiments including measuring density fluctuation, coherence, and collective mode have been performed to understand the 2D supersolid. At last, we also observe unconventional light scattering from round-disk dipolar BECs, which provides new possibilities for atom optics.
We report on experiments exploring the physics of dipolar quantum gases using a 52 Cr Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). By means of a Feshbach resonance, it is possible to reduce the effects of short range interactions and reach a regime where the physics is governed by the long-range, anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction between the large (6 µB) magnetic moments of Chromium atoms. Several dramatic effects of the dipolar interaction are observed: the usual inversion of ellipticity of the condensate during time-of flight is inhibited, the stability of the dipolar gas depends strongly on the trap geometry, and the explosion following the collapse of an unstable dipolar condensate displays d-wave like features.