arXiv subjects

Francesca Ferlaino

Publications and source records attributed to Francesca Ferlaino.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Revealing the topological nature of the bond order wave in a strongly correlated quantum system

We investigate the topological properties of the bond order wave phase arising in the extended Fermi-Hubbard model. In particular, we uncover a topological sector, which remained elusive in previous finite-size numerical studies due to boundary effects. We first show that, for an infinite system, the bond order wave regime is characterized by two degenerate bulk states corresponding to the trivial and topological sectors. The latter turns out to be indeed characterized by an even degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum and longe-range order of a string correlation function. For finite size systems, we show that the topological sector can be stabilized by imposing a suitable border potential. This therefore provides a concrete protocol for the observation of topologically protected degenerate edge modes in finite-size systems. Furthermore, we show that the bulk of the system is characterized by exotic solitonic solutions interpolating between the trivial and topological sectors. Finally, we propose an implementation and detection scheme of this strongly-correlated topological phase in a quantum simulator based on dipolar Fermi gases in optical lattices.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Observation of vortices and vortex stripes in a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate

Quantized vortices are the prototypical feature of superfluidity. Pervasive in all natural systems, vortices are yet to be observed in dipolar quantum gases. Here, we exploit the anisotropic nature of the dipole-dipole interaction of a dysprosium Bose-Einstein condensate to induce angular symmetry breaking in an otherwise cylindrically symmetric pancake-shaped trap. Tilting the magnetic field towards the radial plane deforms the cloud into an ellipsoid through magnetostriction, which is then set into rotation. At stirring frequencies approaching the radial trap frequency, we observe the generation of dynamically unstable surface excitations, which cause angular momentum to be pumped into the system through vortices. Under continuous rotation, the vortices arrange into a stripe configuration along the field--in close corroboration with simulations--realizing a long sought-after prediction for dipolar vortices.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Two-Dimensional Supersolid Formation in Dipolar Condensates

Dipolar condensates have recently been coaxed to form the long-sought supersolid phase. While one-dimensional supersolids may be prepared by triggering a roton instability, we find that such a procedure in two dimensions (2D) leads to a loss of both global phase coherence and crystalline order. Unlike in 1D, the 2D roton modes have little in common with the supersolid configuration. We develop a finite-temperature stochastic Gross-Pitaevskii theory that includes beyond-mean-field effects to explore the formation process in 2D and find that evaporative cooling directly into the supersolid phase--hence bypassing the first-order roton instability--can produce a robust supersolid in a circular trap. Importantly, the resulting supersolid is stable at the final nonzero temperature. We then experimentally produce a 2D supersolid in a near-circular trap through such an evaporative procedure. Our work provides insight into the process of supersolid formation in 2D and defines a realistic path to the formation of large two-dimensional supersolid arrays.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Maintaining supersolidity in one and two dimensions

We theoretically investigate supersolidity in three-dimensional dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. We focus on the role of trap geometry in determining the dimensionality of the resulting droplet arrays, which range from one-dimensional to zigzag, through to two-dimensional supersolids in circular traps. Supersolidity is well established in one-dimensional arrays, and may be just as favorable in two-dimensional arrays provided that one appropriately scales the atom number to the trap volume. We develop a tractable variational model--which we benchmark against full numerical simulations--and use it to study droplet crystals and their excitations. We also outline how exotic ring and stripe states may be created with experimentally-feasible parameters. Our work paves the way for future studies of two-dimensional dipolar supersolids in realistic settings.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Can angular oscillations probe superfluidity in dipolar supersolids?

Angular oscillations can provide a useful probe of the superfluid properties of a system. Such measurements have recently been applied to dipolar supersolids, which exhibit both density modulation and phase coherence, and for which robust probes of superfluidity are particularly interesting. So far, these investigations have been confined to linear droplet arrays. Here, we explore angular oscillations in systems with 2D structure, which in principle have greater sensitivity to superfluidity. Surprisingly, in both experiment and simulation, we find that the frequency of angular oscillations remains nearly unchanged even when the superfluidity of the system is altered dramatically. This indicates that angular oscillation measurements do not always provide a robust experimental probe of superfluidity with typical experimental protocols.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

New opportunites for interactions and control with ultracold lanthanides

Lanthanide atoms have an unusual electron configuration, with a partially filled shell of $f$ orbitals. This leads to a set of characteristic properties that enable enhanced control over ultracold atoms and their interactions: large numbers of optical transitions with widely varying wavelengths and transition strengths, anisotropic interaction properties between atoms and with light, and a large magnetic moment and spin space present in the ground state. These features in turn enable applications ranging from narrow-line laser cooling and spin manipulation to evaporative cooling through universal dipolar scattering, to the observation of a rotonic dispersion relation, self-bound liquid-like droplets stabilized by quantum fluctuations, and supersolid states. In this short review, we describe how the unusual level structure of lanthanide atoms leads to these key features, and provide a brief and necessarily partial overview of experimental progress in this rapidly developing field.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Birth, life, and death of a dipolar supersolid

In the short time since the first observation of supersolid states of ultracold dipolar atoms, substantial progress has been made in understanding the zero-temperature phase diagram and low-energy excitations of these systems. Less is known, however, about their finite-temperature properties, particularly relevant for supersolids formed by cooling through direct evaporation. Here, we explore this realm by characterizing the evaporative formation and subsequent decay of a dipolar supersolid by combining high-resolution in-trap imaging with time-of-flight observables. As our atomic system cools towards quantum degeneracy, it first undergoes a transition from thermal gas to a crystalline state with the appearance of periodic density modulation. This is followed by a transition to a supersolid state with the emergence of long-range phase coherence. Further, we explore the role of temperature in the development of the modulated state.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Two-dimensional supersolidity in a dipolar quantum gas

Supersolidity -- a quantum-mechanical phenomenon characterized by the presence of both superfluidity and crystalline order -- was initially envisioned in the context of bulk solid helium, as a possible answer to the question of whether a solid could have superfluid properties. While supersolidity has not been observed in solid helium (despite much effort), ultracold atomic gases have provided a fundamentally new approach, recently enabling the observation and study of supersolids with dipolar atoms. However, unlike the proposed phenomena in helium, these gaseous systems have so far only shown supersolidity along a single direction. By crossing a structural phase transition similar to those occurring in ionic chains, quantum wires, and theoretically in chains of individual dipolar particles, we demonstrate the extension of supersolid properties into two dimensions, providing an important step closer to the bulk situation envisioned in helium. This opens the possibility of studying rich excitation properties, including vortex formation, as well as ground-state phases with varied geometrical structure in a highly flexible and controllable system.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2020

Feshbach Resonances in an Erbium-Dysprosium Dipolar Mixture

We report on the observation of heteronuclear magnetic Feshbach resonances in several isotope mixtures of the highly magnetic elements erbium and dysprosium. Among many narrow features, we identify two resonances with a width greater than one Gauss. We characterize one of these resonances, in a mixture of $^{168}$Er and $^{164}$Dy, in terms of loss rates and elastic cross section, and observe a temperature dependence of the on-resonance loss rate suggestive of a universal scaling associated with broad resonances. Our observations hold promise for the use of such a resonance for tuning the interspecies scattering properties in a dipolar mixture. We further compare the prevalence of narrow resonances in an $^{168}$Er-$^{164}$Dy mixture to the single-species case, and observe an increased density of resonances in the mixture.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Phase coherence in out-of-equilibrium supersolid states of ultracold dipolar atoms

A supersolid is a fascinating phase of matter, combining the global phase coherence of a superfluid with hallmarks of solids, e.g. a spontaneous breaking of the translational symmetry. Recently, states with such counter-intuitive properties have been realized in experiments using ultracold quantum gases with strong dipolar interactions. Here, we investigate the response of a supersolid state to phase excitations which shatter the global phase coherence. After the creation of those excitations, we observe a rapid re-establishment of a global phase coherence, suggesting the presence of a superfluid flow across the whole sample and an efficient dissipation mechanism. We are able to identify a well-defined region where rephasing occurs, indicating the phase boundary between the solid-like and the supersolid phase. Our observations call for the development of theoretical descriptions able to capture the non-equilibrium dynamics in the recently discovered supersolid states of quantum matter.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Deep Learning-Assisted Classification of Site-Resolved Quantum Gas Microscope Images

We present a novel method for the analysis of quantum gas microscope images, which uses deep learning to improve the fidelity with which lattice sites can be classified as occupied or unoccupied. Our method is especially suited to addressing the case of imaging without continuous cooling, in which the accuracy of existing threshold-based reconstruction methods is limited by atom motion and low photon counts. We devise two neural network architectures which are both able to improve upon the fidelity of threshold-based methods, following training on large data sets of simulated images. We evaluate these methods on simulations of a free-space erbium quantum gas microscope, and a noncooled ytterbium microscope in which atoms are pinned in a deep lattice during imaging. In some conditions we see reductions of up to a factor of two in the reconstruction error rate, representing a significant step forward in our efforts to implement high fidelity noncooled site-resolved imaging.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Observation of Roton Mode Population in a Dipolar Quantum Gas

The concept of a roton, a special kind of elementary excitation, forming a minimum of energy at finite momentum, has been essential to understand the properties of superfluid $^4$He. In quantum liquids, rotons arise from the strong interparticle interactions, whose microscopic description remains debated. In the realm of highly-controllable quantum gases, a roton mode has been predicted to emerge due to magnetic dipole-dipole interactions despite of their weakly-interacting character. This prospect has raised considerable interest; yet roton modes in dipolar quantum gases have remained elusive to observations. Here we report experimental and theoretical studies of the momentum distribution in Bose-Einstein condensates of highly-magnetic erbium atoms, revealing the existence of the long-sought roton mode. By quenching the interactions, we observe the roton appearance of peaks at well-defined momentum. The roton momentum follows the predicted geometrical scaling with the inverse of the confinement length along the magnetisation axis. From the growth of the roton population, we probe the roton softening of the excitation spectrum in time and extract the corresponding imaginary roton gap. Our results provide a further step in the quest towards supersolidity in dipolar quantum gases.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2018

Ground state of an ultracold Fermi gas of tilted dipoles in elongated traps

Many-body dipolar effects in Fermi gases are quite subtle as they energetically compete with the large kinetic energy at and below the Fermi surface (FS). Recently it was experimentally observed that the FS is deformed from a sphere to an ellipsoid due to the presence of the anisotropic and long-range dipole-dipole interaction. Moreover, it was suggested that, when the dipoles are rotated by means of an external field, the FS follows their rotation, thereby keeping the major axis of the momentum-space ellipsoid parallel to the dipoles. Here we generalise a previous Hartree-Fock mean-field theory to systems confined in an elongated triaxial trap with an arbitrary orientation of the dipoles relative to the trap. With this we study for the first time the effects of the dipoles' arbitrary orientation on the ground-state properties of the system. Furthermore, taking into account the geometry of the system, we show how the ellipsoidal FS deformation can be reconstructed, assuming ballistic expansion, from the experimentally measurable real-space aspect ratio after a free expansion. We compare our theoretical results with new experimental data measured with an erbium Fermi gas for various trap parameters and dipole orientations. The observed remarkable agreement demonstrates the ability of our model to capture the full angular dependence of the FS deformation. Moreover, for systems with even higher dipole moment, our theory predicts an additional unexpected effect: the FS does not simply follow rigidly the orientation of the dipoles, but softens showing a change in the aspect ratio depending on the dipoles' orientation relative to the trap geometry, as well as on the trap anisotropy itself. Our theory provides the basis for understanding and interpreting phenomena in which the investigated physics depends on the underlying structure of the FS, such as fermionic pairing and superfluidity.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Anisotropic polarizability of erbium atoms

We report on the determination of the dynamical polarizability of ultracold erbium atoms in the ground and in one excited state at three different wavelengths, which are particularly relevant for optical trapping. Our study combines experimental measurements of the light shift and theoretical calculations. In particular, our experimental approach allows us to isolate the different contributions to the polarizability, namely the isotropic scalar and anisotropic tensor part. For the latter contribution, we observe a clear dependence of the atomic polarizability on the angle between the laser-field-polarization axis and the quantization axis, set by the external magnetic field. Such an angle-dependence is particularly pronounced in the excited-state polarizability. We compare our experimental findings with the theoretical values, based on semi-empirical electronic-structure calculations and we observe a very good overall agreement. Our results pave the way to exploit the anisotropy of the tensor polarizability for spin-selective preparation and manipulation.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Ultracold dense samples of dipolar RbCs molecules in the rovibrational and hyperfine ground state

We produce ultracold dense trapped samples of 87Rb133Cs molecules in their rovibrational ground state, with full nuclear hyperfine state control, by stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) with efficiencies of 90%. We observe the onset of hyperfine-changing collisions when the magnetic field is ramped so that the molecules are no longer in the hyperfine ground state. A strong quadratic shift of the transition frequencies as a function of applied electric field shows the strongly dipolar character of the RbCs ground-state molecule. Our results open up the prospect of realizing stable bosonic dipolar quantum gases with ultracold molecules.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Resonant atom-dimer collisions in cesium: Testing universality at positive scattering lengths

We study the collisional properties of an ultracold mixture of cesium atoms and dimers close to a Feshbach resonance near 550G in the regime of positive $s$-wave scattering lengths. We observe an atom-dimer loss resonance that is related to Efimov's scenario of trimer states. The resonance is found at a value of the scattering length that is different from a previous observation at low magnetic fields. This indicates non-universal behavior of the Efimov spectrum for positive scattering lengths. We compare our observations with predictions from effective field theory and with a recent model based on the van der Waals interaction. We present additional measurements on pure atomic samples in order to check for the presence of a resonant loss feature related to an avalanche effect as suggested by observations in other atomic species. We could not confirm the presence of such a feature.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Quantum Chaos in Ultracold Collisions of Erbium

Atomic and molecular samples reduced to temperatures below 1 microkelvin, yet still in the gas phase, afford unprecedented energy resolution in probing and manipulating how their constituent particles interact with one another. For simple atoms, such as alkalis, scattering resonances are extremely well-characterized. However, ultracold physics is now poised to enter a new regime, where far more complex species can be cooled and studied, including magnetic lanthanide atoms and even molecules. For molecules, it has been speculated that a dense forest of resonances in ultracold collision cross sections will likely express essentially random fluctuations, much as the observed energy spectra of nuclear scattering do. According to the Bohigas-Giannoni-Schmit conjecture, these fluctuations would imply chaotic dynamics of the underlying classical motion driving the collision. This would provide a paradigm shift in ultracold atomic and molecular physics, necessitating new ways of looking at the fundamental interactions of atoms in this regime, as well as perhaps new chaos-driven states of ultracold matter. In this report we provide the first experimental demonstration that random spectra are indeed found at ultralow temperatures. In the experiment, an ultracold gas of erbium atoms is shown to exhibit many Fano-Feshbach resonances, for bosons on the order of 3 per gauss. Analysis of their statistics verifies that their distribution of nearest-neighbor spacings is what one would expect from random matrix theory. The density and statistics of these resonances are explained by fully-quantum mechanical scattering calculations that locate their origin in the anisotropy of the atoms' potential energy surface. Our results therefore reveal for the first time chaotic behavior in the native interaction between ultracold atoms.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Hyperfine structure of laser-cooling transitions in fermionic erbium-167

We have measured and analyzed the hyperfine structure of two lines, one at 583nm and one at 401nm, of the only stable fermionic isotope of atomic erbium as well as determined its isotope shift relative to the four most-abundant bosonic isotopes. Our work focuses on the J->J+1 laser cooling transitions from the [Xe] 4f12 6s2 (3H6) ground state to two levels of the excited [Xe] 4f12 6s6p configuration, which are of major interest for experiments on quantum degenerate dipolar Fermi gases. From a fit to the observed spectra of the strong optical transition at 401nm we find that the magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole hyperfine constants for the excited state are Ae/h=-100.1(3)MHz and Be/h=-3079(30)MHz, respectively. The hyperfine spectrum of the narrow transition at 583nm, was previously observed and accurate Ae and Be coefficients are available. A simulated spectrum based on these coefficients agrees well with our measurements. We have also determined the hyperfine constants using relativistic configuration-interaction ab initio calculations. The agreement between the ab initio and fitted data for the ground state is better than 0.1%, while for the two excited states the agreement is 1% and 11% for the Ae and Be constants, respectively.

physics.atom-ph↗