Induced supersolidity in a Dy-Er mixture

Abstract

Recent experimental realization of the heteronuclear dipolar mixture of Dy and Er atoms opens fascinating prospects for creating intriguing novel phases in dipolar quantum gases. The experimentally measured value of intra-species $s$-wave scattering length of $^{166}$Er condensate in a $^{164}$Dy-$^{166}$Er mixture is larger than its intra-species dipolar length, implies that the $^{166}$Er condensate itself will not be in a regime of dominated dipole-dipole interaction (DDI). However, we find that the presence of $^{164}$Dy atoms with high magnetic moment induces droplet nucleation and supersolidity in $^{166}$Er condensate via the long-range and anisotropic inter-species DDI. Remarkably, we find that the imbalance in the magnetic dipole moment combined with its strong anisotropic coupling led to the emergence of unique ground state phases. The emerging phases include doubly superfluid states, a mixture of insulating droplets and supersolid states, binary supersolids with uniform and alternating domains and a combination of supersolid-superfluid mixed states. We delineate the properties of all these ground state phases and construct a phase diagram. We also explore the dynamical evolution across these phase boundaries via a linear quench of inter-species scattering length. Although we have demonstrated the result for the $^{164}$Dy-$^{166}$Er mixture, our results are generally valid for other dipolar bosonic mixtures of different Dy-Er isotope combinations and may become an important benchmark for future experimental scenarios.