Morphology of dipolar Bose droplets

TL;DR

This paper investigates the ground state of dipolar Bose droplets using Quantum Monte Carlo simulations, revealing a transition from classical filamentary structures to quantum-mechanically stabilized prolate droplets as interaction parameters vary.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the morphological transition in dipolar Bose droplets, highlighting the roles of classical and quantum effects in their stability and structure.

Findings

Identification of a classical regime with filamentary structures

Discovery of a quantum regime with prolate droplets

Abrupt transition between the two regimes

Abstract

The ground state of a free standing, self-bound droplet comprising four hundred dipolar Bose particles with aligned dipole moments, with an additional purely repulsive two-body interaction, is investigated by Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The focus here is on the evolution of the cluster as the effective range of the repulsive interaction is varied. We identify a ``classical'' regime, in which binding arises exclusively from the dipolar potential energy and the cluster is a quasi-one-dimensional filament, and a ``quantum'' regime of prolate droplets, held together to a significant degree by quantum-mechanical exchanges. The transition between the two regimes occurs abruptly.