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Creating and Exploring Bose-Einstein Condensates of Dipolar Molecules

ORAL · Invited

Abstract

We have recently created the first Bose-Einstein condensate of dipolar molecules [1]. Building on our earlier demonstration of microwave shielding of NaCs molecules [2-4], gases of NaCs are cooled from 700 nK to less than 10 nK, deep into the quantum degenerate regime. The lifetime of the molecular BEC is almost 2 seconds, reaching a level of stability similar to ultracold atomic gases. This is enabled by collisional shielding that dramatically suppresses inelastic losses by four orders of magnitude compared to unshielded molecules.

In this talk, I will discuss the key advances that led us to the creation of the molecular BEC and share our latest insights. In addition to applications in quantum simulation and quantum information - thanks to a strong dipole moment - NaCs offers exciting prospects to discover novel strongly interacting phases of dipolar quantum matter.

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Publication: [1] Bigagli, Yuan, Zhang, et al., Observation of Bose-Einstein condensation of dipolar molecules, arXiv:2312.10965 (2023)<br>[2] Stevenson, et al., Ultracold gas of dipolar NaCs ground state molecules, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 113002 (2023)<br>[3] Yuan, Zhang et al., A planar cloverleaf antenna for the creation of circularly polarized microwave fields, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 94, 123201 (2023)<br>[4] Bigagli, et al., Collisionally stable gas of bosonic dipolar ground state molecules, Nature Physics, 19, 1579-1584 (2023)

Presenters

  • Sebastian Will

    Columbia University

Authors

  • Sebastian Will

    Columbia University