Mesoscopic phases of dipolar ensembles with polar molecules and Rydberg atoms

TL;DR

This paper explores mesoscopic phases in dipolar gases of polar molecules and Rydberg atoms, predicting novel superfluid, supersolid, and crystal states in confined two-dimensional systems, with potential experimental detection methods.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of mesoscopic phases in dipolar ensembles and predicts non-classical crystal stabilization by quantum fluctuations in confined geometries.

Findings

Prediction of superfluid clusters, supersolids, and crystals in 2D dipolar gases.

Identification of conditions for non-classical crystal stabilization.

Proposal of a detection scheme for crystalline phases.

Abstract

We discuss the realization of mesoscopic phases of dipolar gases relevant to current experiments with cold polar molecules and Rydberg atoms confined to two dimensions. We predict the existence of superfluid clusters, mesoscopic supersolids, and crystals for a small number of trapped particles, with no counterpart in the homogeneous situation. For certain strengths of the dipole-dipole interactions, the stabilization of purely {\it non-classical crystals} by quantum fluctuations is possible. We propose a magnification scheme to detect the spatial structure of these crystalline phases.