We study theoretically and experimentally the emergence of supersolid properties in a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate. The theory reveals a ground state phase diagram with three distinct regimes -a regular Bose-Einstein condensate, incoherent and coherent arrays of quantum droplets. The coherent droplets are connected by a background condensate, which leads -in addition to the periodic density modulation -to a robust phase coherence throughout the whole system. We further theoretically demonstrate that we are able to dynamically approach the ground state in our experiment and that its lifetime is only limited by three-body losses. Experimentally we probe and confirm the signatures of the phase diagram by observing the in-situ density modulation as well as the phase coherence using matter wave interference. arXiv:1901.07982v2 [cond-mat.quant-gas]

We report the successful production of an ultracold sample of absolute ground-state ^{23}Na^{87}Rb molecules. Starting from weakly bound Feshbach molecules formed via magnetoassociation, the lowest rovibrational and hyperfine level of the electronic ground state is populated following a high-efficiency and high-resolution two-photon Raman process. The high-purity absolute ground-state samples have up to 8000 molecules and densities of over 10^{11}  cm^{-3}. By measuring the Stark shifts induced by external electric fields, we determined the permanent electric dipole moment of the absolute ground-state ^{23}Na^{87}Rb and demonstrated the capability of inducing an effective dipole moment over 1 D. Bimolecular reaction between ground-state ^{23}Na^{87}Rb molecules is endothermic, but we still observed a rather fast decay of the molecular sample. Our results pave the way toward investigation of ultracold molecular collisions in a fully controlled manner and possibly to quantum gases of ultracold bosonic molecules with strong dipolar interactions.

A supersolid is a counter-intuitive state of matter that combines the frictionless flow of a superfluid with the crystal-like periodic density modulation of a solid 1, 2 . Since the first prediction in the 1950s 3 , experimental efforts to realize this state have focussed mainly on Helium, where supersolidity remains elusive 4 . Recently, supersolidity has also been studied intensively in ultracold quantum gases, and some of its defining properties have been induced in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) 5 and BECs coupled to two crossed optical cavities 6, 7 . However, the periodicity of the crystals in both systems is fixed to the wavelength of the applied periodic optical potentials. Recently, hallmark properties of a supersolid -the periodic density modulation and simultaneous global phase coherence -have been observed in arrays of dipolar quantum droplets 8-10 , where the crystallization happens in a self-organized manner due to intrinsic interactions. In this letter, we prove the genuine supersolid nature of these droplet arrays by directly observing the low-energy Goldstone mode. The dynamics of this mode is reminiscent of the effect of second sound in other superfluid systems 11,12 and features an out-ofphase oscillation of the crystal array and the superfluid density. This mode exists only due to the phase rigidity of the experimentally realized state, and therefore confirms the genuine superfluidity of the supersolid. arXiv:1906.04633v1 [cond-mat.quant-gas]

An experiment on ultracold polar molecules shows that there is more to be understood besides ultracold chemical reactions.

Dipolar quantum droplets are exotic quantum objects that are self-bound due to the subtle balance of attraction, repulsion and quantum correlations. Here we present a systematic study of the critical atom number of these self-bound droplets, comparing the experimental results with extended mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation (eGPE) and quantum Monte-Carlo simulations of the dilute system. The respective theoretical predictions differ, questioning the validity of the current theoretical state-of-the-art description of quantum droplets within the eGPE framework and indicating that correlations in the system are significant. Furthermore, we show that our system can serve as a sensitive testing ground for many-body theories in the near future.

Quantum fluctuations can stabilize Bose–Einstein condensates (BEC) against the mean-field collapse. Stabilization of the condensate has been observed in quantum degenerate Bose–Bose mixtures and dipolar BECs. The fine-tuning of the interatomic interactions can lead to the emergence of two new states of matter: liquid-like self-bound quantum droplets and supersolid crystals formed from these droplets. We review the properties of these exotic states of matter and summarize the experimental progress made using dipolar quantum gases and Bose–Bose mixtures. We conclude with an outline of important open questions that could be addressed in the future.

The dipolar collision between ultracold polar molecules is an important topic both by its own right from the fundamental point of view and for the successful exploration of many-body physics with strong and long-range dipolar interactions. Here, we report the investigation of collisions between ultracold ground-state sodium-rubidium molecules in electric fields with induced electric dipole moments as large as 0.7 D. We observe a step-wise enhancement of losses due to the coupling between different partial waves induced by the increasingly stronger anisotropic dipolar interactions. Varying the temperature of our sample, we find good agreement with theoretical loss rates assuming complex formation as the main loss process. Our results shed new light on the understanding of complex molecular collisions in the presence of strong dipolar interactions and also demonstrate the versatility of modifying molecular interactions with electric fields. * Present address: 5. Physikalisches

We theoretically investigate the spectrum of elementary excitations of a trapped dipolar quantum gas across the BEC-supersolid phase transition. Our calculations reveal the existence of distinct Higgs and Nambu-Goldstone modes that emerge from the softening roton modes of the dipolar BEC at the phase transition point. On the supersolid side of the transition, the energy of the Higgs mode increases rapidly, leading to a strong coupling to higher-lying modes. Our study highlights how the symmetry-breaking nature of the supersolid state translates to finite-size systems.arXiv:1907.09315v1 [cond-mat.quant-gas]