Self-organized structures and excitations in dipolar quantum fluids

Abstract

Quantum many-body phenomena at a macroscopic scale, such as superfluidity and superconductivity, are rooted in the interplay between microscopic particles, governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Exploring how this interplay leads to quantum behavior at a large scale allows us to gain a deeper understanding of nature and to discover new quantum phases. An elusive quantum phase in which the frictionless flow of superfluids and the crystal structure of solids coexists - the supersolid - was recently realized with quantum droplets in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. In this thesis we investigate self-organized structures, their formation mechanism, and excitations in dipolar quantum fluids created from such Bose-Einstein condensates. We show that the supersolid formation mechanism is driven by density fluctuations due to low-energy roton excitations, leading to a crystal structure of quantum droplets that are immersed in a superfluid background. These roton excitations split into a Goldstone mode and a Higgs amplitude mode, associated to the broken translational symmetry in the supersolid. We investigate the symmetry breaking of dipolar quantum fluids in a range of confinement geometries and establish a comprehensive description of elementary excitations across the superfluid to supersolid droplet phase transition. The droplets are stabilized by an interplay between interactions and the presence of quantum fluctuations. We show how this interplay can be used to find regimes where droplets are immersed in a high superfluid background, allowing for frictionless flow throughout the crystal. Moreover we show that towards higher densities beyond the quantum droplet phase, this interplay leads to several new self-organized structures in the phase diagram of dipolar quantum fluids. We theoretically predict new supersolid honeycomb, amorphous labyrinth, and other phases in oblate dipolar quantum fluids. Finally, we present a new experimental setup for the exploration of self-organized phases in dipolar quantum fluids and which also lays the foundation for the implementation of a quantum gas microscope. The results of this thesis present a complete framework for understanding and creating exotic phases in dipolar quantum fluids. The versatile structure formation, governed by a competition of controllable interactions and the presence of quantum fluctuations, positions dipolar quantum fluids as a model system for exploring self-organized equilibrium in weakly-interacting quantum many-body systems.