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American Physical Society, Physical Review X, 4(6)

DOI: 10.1103/physrevx.6.041039

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Quantum-Fluctuation-driven crossover from a dilute bose-einstein condensate to a macrodroplet in a dipolar quantum fluid

Journal article published in 2016 by L. Chomaz, S. Baier, D. Petter, M. J. J. Mark ORCID, F. Wächtler, L. Santos, F. Ferlaino
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

In a joint experimental, theoretical effort, we report on the formation of a macrodroplet state in an ultracold bosonic gas of erbium atoms with strong dipolar interactions. By precise tuning of the s-wave scattering length below the so-called dipolar length, we observe a smooth crossover of the ground state from a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate to a dense macrodroplet state of more than 2 × 104 atoms. Based on the study of collective excitations, loss features, we prove that quantum fluctuations stabilize the ultracold gas far beyond the instability threshold imposed by mean-field interactions. Finally, we perform expansion measurements, showing that although self-bound solutions are prevented by losses, the interplay between quantum stabilization, losses results in a minimal time-of-flight expansion velocity at a finite scattering length. ; Other ; publishedVersion