We analyze a system of dipolar atoms confined in geometries of quasi-low-dimensionality. Due to the long-range and anisotropic nature of dipolar interactions, the system supports both stable solitons and quantum droplets. In quasi-one-dimensional geometries, the transition between these states is known to manifest either as a first-order phase transition, associated with bistability, or as a smooth crossover. We investigate this transition by calculating the structure factor and showing that the response of the breathing mode provides an experimentally accessible probe. In addition, we identify regions of both bistability and smooth crossover in quasi-two-dimensional geometries. Finally, we connect our findings to previous experimental results and delineate the conditions under which two-dimensional dipolar bright solitons can be realized.

Strongly interacting fermions represent the key constituent of several intriguing phases of matter. However, due to the inherent complexity of these systems, important regimes are still inaccessible. Here, we derive a realistic and flexible setup based on ultracold magnetic lanthanide atoms trapped in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Leveraging their large magnetic moments, we design a fermionic t-J model with independently tunable hopping, spin-spin couplings, and onsite interaction. Through combined analytical and numerical analysis, we uncover a variety of many-body quantum phases-including superconducting and topological states. Crucially, in the regime of attractive onsite interaction we reveal that topology and superconductivity coexist, thus giving rise to an exotic state of matter: a topological triplet superconductor. We also outline a practical protocol to prepare and detect all discovered phases using current experimental techniques. Our results establish an alternative and powerful route for a deeper understanding of strongly interacting fermionic quantum matter.

In recent years, the systems comprising of bosonic atoms confined to optical lattices at ultra-cold temperatures have demonstrated tremendous potential to unveil novel quantum mechanical effects appearing in lattice boson models with various kinds of interactions. In this progress report, we aim to provide an exposition to recent advancements in quantum simulations of such systems, modeled by different "non-standard" Bose-Hubbard models, focusing primarily on long-range systems with dipole-dipole or cavity-mediated interactions. Through a carefully curated selection of topics, which includes the emergence of quantum criticality beyond Landau paradigm, bond-order wave insulators, the role of interaction-induced tunneling, the influence of transverse confinement on observed phases, or the effect of cavity-mediated all-to-all interactions, we report both theoretical and experimental developments from the last few years. Additionally, we discuss the real-time evolution of systems with long-range interactions, where sufficiently strong interactions render the dynamics non-ergodic. And finally to cap our discussions off, we survey recent experimental achievements in this rapidly evolving field, underscoring its interdisciplinary significance and potential for groundbreaking discoveries.

Synchronization is ubiquitous in nature at various scales and fields. This phenomenon not only offers a window into the intrinsic harmony of complex systems, but also serves as a robust probe for many-body quantum systems. One such system is a supersolid: an exotic state that is simultaneously superfluid and solid. Here, we show that putting a supersolid under rotation leads to a synchronization of the crystal's motion to an external driving frequency triggered by quantum vortex nucleation, revealing the system's dual solid-superfluid response. Benchmarking the theoretical framework against experimental observations, we exploit this model as a novel method to investigate the critical frequency required for vortex nucleation. Our results underscore the utility of synchronization as a powerful probe for quantum systems.

Supraflüssigkeiten können nicht wie klassische Flüssigkeiten rotieren, sondern bilden Quantenwirbel aus. Diese Eigenschaft wurde nun erstmals experimentell in Suprafestkörpern nachgewiesen, die sich sowohl wie ein Festkörper als auch wie eine Supraflüssigkeit verhalten. Dies eröffnet womöglich ganz neue Möglichkeiten zur Nachbildung und Untersuchung von Pulsaren im Labor.

The excitation spectrum of a cigar-shaped strongly dipolar quantum gas at the crossover from a Bose-Einstein condensate to a trapped macrodroplet is predicted to exhibit peculiar features - a strong upward shift of low momentum excitation energies together with a strong multi-band response for high momenta. By performing Bragg spectroscopy over a wide range of momenta, we observe both key elements and also confirm the predicted stiffening of excitation modes when approaching the macrodroplet regime. Our measurements are in good agreement with numerical calculations taking into account finite size effects.

We present the first successful trapping of single erbium atoms in an array of optical tweezers. Using a single narrow-line optical transition, we achieve deep cooling for direct tweezer loading, pairwise ejection, and continous imaging without additional recoil suppression techniques. Our tweezer wavelength choice enables us to reach the magic trapping condition by tuning the ellipticity of the trapping light. Additionally, we implement an ultrafast high-fidelity fluorescence imaging scheme using a broad transition, allowing time-resolved study of the tweezer population dynamics from many to single atoms during light-assisted collisions. In particular, we extract a pair-ejection rate that qualitatively agrees with the semiclassical predictions by the Gallagher-Pritchard model. This work represents a promising starting point for the exploration of erbium as a powerful resource for quantum simulation in optical tweezers.

Supersolids are states of matter that spontaneously break two continuous symmetries: translational invariance due to the appearance of a crystal structure and phase invariance due to phase locking of single-particle wave functions, responsible for superfluid phenomena. While originally predicted to be present in solid helium, ultracold quantum gases provided a first platform to observe supersolids, with particular success coming from dipolar atoms. Phase locking in dipolar supersolids has been probed through e.g. measurements of the phase coherence and gapless Goldstone modes, but quantized vortices, a hydrodynamic fingerprint of superfluidity, have not yet been observed. Here, with the prerequisite pieces at our disposal, namely a method to generate vortices in dipolar gases and supersolids with two-dimensional crystalline order, we report on the theoretical investigation and experimental observation of vortices in the supersolid phase. Our work reveals a fundamental difference in vortex seeding dynamics between unmodulated and modulated quantum fluids. This opens the door to study the hydrodynamic properties of exotic quantum systems with multiple spontaneously broken symmetries, in disparate domains such as quantum crystals and neutron stars.

Thouless pumping represents a powerful concept to probe quantized topological invariants in quantum systems. We explore this mechanism in a generalized Rice-Mele Fermi-Hubbard model characterized by the presence of competing onsite and intersite interactions. Contrary to recent experimental and theoretical results, showing a breakdown of quantized pumping induced by the onsite repulsion, we prove that sufficiently large intersite interactions allow for an interaction-induced recovery of Thouless pumps. Our analysis further reveals that the occurrence of stable topological transport at large interactions is connected to the presence of a spontaneous bond-order-wave in the ground-state phase diagram of the model. Finally, we discuss a concrete experimental setup based on ultracold magnetic atoms in an optical lattice to realize the newly introduced Thouless pump. Our results provide a new mechanism to stabilize Thouless pumps in interacting quantum systems.

Lanthanides, like erbium and dysprosium, have emerged as powerful platforms for quantum-gas research due to their diverse properties, including a significant large spin manifold in their absolute ground state. However, effectively exploiting the spin richness necessitates precise manipulation of spin populations, a challenge yet to be fully addressed in this class of atomic species. In this work, we present an all-optical method for deterministically controlling the spin composition of a dipolar bosonic erbium gas, based on a clock-like transition in the telecom window at 1299 nm. The atoms can be prepared in just a few tens of microseconds in any spin-state composition using a sequence of Rabi-pulse pairs, selectively coupling Zeeman sublevels of the ground state with those of the long-lived clock-like state. Finally, we demonstrate that this transition can also be used to create spin-selective light shifts, thus fully suppressing spin-exchange collisions. These experimental results unlock exciting possibilities for implementing advanced spin models in isolated, clean and fully controllable lattice systems.

Zusammenfassung Seit kurzem ist es möglich, den vor über 50 Jahren vorhergesagten paradoxen Materiezustand eines Suprafestkörpers im Labor zu erzeugen. Er besitzt tatsächlich eine feste und eine suprafluide Phase zugleich. Die für die Erzeugung verwendeten dipolaren Quantengase ermöglichen eine präzise Manipulation dieses Zustands und erlauben einen direkten Einblick in seine Eigenschaften. Zukünftig könnten neue suprafeste Quantengas‐Systeme aus ultrakalten Molekülen und Quantengasmischungen weitere überraschende Erkenntnisse parat halten.

We report on the observation of confinement-induced resonances for strong three-dimensional (3D) confinement in a lattice potential. Starting from a Mott-insulator state with predominantly single-site occupancy, we detect loss and heating features at specific values for the confinement length and the 3D scattering length. Two independent models, based on the coupling between the center-of-mass and the relative motion of the particles as mediated by the lattice, predict the resonance positions to a good approximation, suggesting a universal behavior. Our results extend confinement-induced resonances to any dimensionality and open up an alternative method for interaction tuning and controlled molecule formation under strong 3D confinement.

Glitches, spin-up events in neutron stars, are of prime interest, as they reveal properties of nuclear matter at subnuclear densities. We numerically investigate the glitch mechanism due to vortex unpinning using analogies between neutron stars and dipolar supersolids. We explore the vortex and crystal dynamics during a glitch and its dependence on the supersolid quality, providing a tool to study glitches from different radial depths of a neutron star. Benchmarking our theory against neutron-star observations, our work will open a new avenue for the quantum simulation of stellar objects from Earth.

Quantized vortices are the hallmark of superfluidity, and are often sought out as the first observable feature in new superfluid systems. Following the recent experimental observation of vortices in Bose-Einstein condensates comprised of atoms with inherent long-range dipole-dipole interactions [Nat. Phys. 18, 1453-1458 (2022)], we thoroughly investigate vortex properties in the three-dimensional dominantly dipolar regime, where beyond-mean-field effects are crucial for stability, and investigate the interplay between trap geometry and magnetic field tilt angle.

Quantum gas microscopes are versatile and powerful tools for fundamental science as well as promising candidates for enticing applications such as in quantum simulation or quantum computation. Here we present a quantum gas microscopy setup for experiments with highly magnetic atoms of the lanthanoid elements erbium and dysprosium. Our setup features a non-magnetic, non-conducting, large-working-distance, high-numerical-aperture, in-vacuum microscope objective, mounted inside a glue-free quartz glass cell. The quartz glass cell is enclosed by a compact multi-shell ferromagnetic shield that passively suppresses external magnetic field noise by a factor of more than a thousand. Our setup will enable direct manipulation and probing of the rich quantum many-body physics of dipolar atoms in optical lattices, and bears the potential to put exciting theory proposals - including exotic magnetic phases and quantum phase transitions - to an experimental test.

Quantized vortices are a prototypical feature of superfluidity that have been observed in multiple quantum gas experiments. But the occurrence of vortices in dipolar quantum gases—a class of ultracold gases characterized by long-range anisotropic interactions—has not been reported yet. 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, 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 agreement with numerical simulations.

Three-dimensional quantum gases of strongly dipolar atoms can undergo a crossover from a dilute gas to a dense macrodroplet, stabilized by quantum fluctuations. Adding a one-dimensional optical lattice creates a platform where quantum fluctuations are still unexplored, and a rich variety of new phases may be observable. We employ Bloch oscillations as an interferometric tool to assess the role quantum fluctuations play in an array of quasi-two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates. Long-lived oscillations are observed when the chemical potential is balanced between sites, in a region where a macrodroplet is extended over several lattice sites. Further, we observe a transition to a state that is localized to a single lattice plane$-$driven purely by interactions$-$marked by the disappearance of the interference pattern in the momentum distribution. To describe our observations, we develop a discrete one-dimensional extended Gross-Pitaevskii theory, including quantum fluctuations and a variational approach for the on-site wavefunction. This model is in quantitative agreement with the experiment, revealing the existence of single and multisite macrodroplets, and signatures of a two-dimensional bright soliton.

We experimentally and theoretically investigate the influence of the dipole-dipole interactions (DDIs) on the total inter-species interaction in an erbium-dysprosium mixture. By rotating the dipole orientation we are able to tune the effect of the long-range and anisotropic DDI, and therefore the in-trap clouds displacement. We present a theoretical description for our binary system based on an extended Gross-Pitaevskii (eGP) theory, including the single-species beyond mean-field terms, and we predict a lower and an upper bound for the inter-species scattering length a_12. Our work is a first step towards the investigation of the experimentally unexplored dipolar miscibility-immiscibility phase diagram and the realization of quantum droplets and supersolid states with heteronuclear dipolar mixtures.

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.