Stability of a trapped dipolar quantum gas

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the stability of trapped dipolar quantum gases, highlighting how trap geometry, temperature, and exchange interactions influence stability, with implications for experiments aiming to create polar molecule condensates or degenerate gases.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive stability diagram for dipolar quantum gases considering trap geometry and temperature using Hartree-Fock theory, including exchange effects.

Findings

Exchange interactions significantly reduce stability.

Double instability in oblate traps persists for bosons.

Results inform experimental strategies for polar molecule quantum gases.

Abstract

We calculate the stability diagram for a trapped normal Fermi or Bose gas with dipole-dipole interactions. Our study characterizes the roles of trap geometry and temperature on the stability using Hartree-Fock theory. We find that exchange appreciably reduces stability, and that, for bosons, the double instability feature in oblate trapping geometries predicted previously is still predicted by the Hartree-Fock theory. Our results are relevant to current experiments with polar molecules and will be useful in developing strategies to obtain a polar molecule Bose-Einstein condensate or degenerate Fermi gas.