New Physics in Strongly Magnetic Ultracold Gases

The interplay of crystallinity, magnetism and superfluidity is of great fundamental and technological interest.   Advances in the quantum manipulation of highly magnetic ultracold atomic gases are opening a new frontier in the quest to better understand strongly correlated matter exhibiting such phenomena.  

By exploiting the long-range and anisotropic character of the dipole-dipole interaction, we hope to create novel forms of soft quantum matter, phases like quantum liquid crystals and quantum glasses which lie intermediate between canonical states of order and disorder.  Our group recently created Bose and Fermi quantum degenerate gases of the most magnetic element, dysprosium, which should allow clean, precision investigations of, e.g., melted quantum smectics.  Such phases are thought to exist in high T_c superconductors, wherein their relation to unconventional superconductivity is a matter of heated debate.  We present details of recent experiments that created the first degenerate dipolar Fermi gas [1] as well as the first strongly dipolar BEC in low field [2]. 

In addition, BECs of Dy will form the key ingredient in novel scanning probes using atom chips.  We are developing a Dy cryogenic atom chip microscope that will possess unsurpassed sensitivity and resolution for the imaging of condensed matter materials exhibiting  topologically protected transport [3] and magnetism.

[1] Lu, M. and Burdick, N. Q. and Lev, B. L, Quantum Degenerate Dipolar Fermi Gas, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 215301 (2012).

[2] Lu, M. and Burdick, N. Q. and Youn, S.-H. and Lev, B. L, Strongly Dipolar Bose-Einstein Condensate of Dysprosium, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 190401 (2011).

[3] Dellabetta, B. and Hughes, T. and Gilbert, M. and Lev, B. L, Imaging topologically protected transport with quantum degenerate gases, Phys. Rev. B 85, 205442 (2012).