Creating and melting a supersolid by heating a quantum dipolar system

TL;DR

This study uses advanced simulations to demonstrate that increasing temperature can induce a supersolid phase in a dipolar quantum gas, revealing the complex interplay of thermal effects and quantum interactions.

Contribution

The paper provides the first microscopic, quantitative analysis showing temperature alone can create and melt a supersolid in a dipolar system using path integral Monte Carlo.

Findings

Temperature can induce supersolidity in dipolar gases.

Supersolid formation and melting are characterized quantitatively.

Thermal effects interplay with quantum interactions to produce supersolidity.

Abstract

Recent experiments have shown that rising the temperature of a dipolar gas under certain conditions leads to a transition to a supersolid state. Here, we employ the path integral Monte Carlo method, which exactly accounts for both thermal and correlation effects, to study that phenomenology in a system of $^{162}$Dy atoms in the canonical ensemble. Our microscopic description allows to quantitatively characterize the emergence of spatial order and superfluidity, the two ingredients that define a supersolid state. Our calculations prove that temperature on its own can promote the formation of a supersolid in a dipolar system. Furthermore, we bridge this exotic phenomenology with the more usual melting of the supersolid at a higher temperature. Our results offer insight into the interplay between thermal excitations, the dipole-dipole interaction, quantum statistics and supersolidity.