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The supersolid, a New Quantum State of Matter

Research of the University of Florence — CNR published in Physical Review Letters

A team of researchers from the University of Florence and the National Research Council (CNR) observed in the laboratory of the National Institute of Optics of Pisa (CNR-INO) a new state of matter: the supersolid. It has the structure of a solid, the properties of a superfluid and behaves according to the laws of quantum mechanics. This new state of matter, which combines the characteristics of a solid — particles arranged in a fixed, periodic structure — with those of a superfluid — absence of viscosity and friction — presents new and still largely unexplored properties. Researchers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Florence and the European Non-Linear Spectroscopy Laboratory (LENS), of the CNR-INO, together with the theoretical support of the University of Hannover studied it in a gas of ultracold magnetic atoms, made in the laboratory with dysprosium atoms brought to temperatures near absolute zero (-273.15 ° C). The study was published in Physical Review Letters (“Observation of a dipolar quantum gas with metastable supersolid properties” doi: 10.1103 / PhysRevLett.122.130405).

“Researchers since the 1960s have tried to realize this state of matter, foreseen by the laws of quantum mechanics — explains the coordinator of the team Giovanni Modugno, professor of Physics of the matter at the University of Florence. “After having tried helium, the attempts were directed towards the Bose-Einstein condensates, sets of ultracold bosons in which the particles are in a superfluid state. And precisely through a Bose-Einstein condensate, made with a particular type of very magnetic atoms, we managed today to arrive at the observation of a supersolid that is based only on the interaction between atoms.”

As a matter of fact, atoms behave like powerful magnets, interacting with each other to form a periodic structure; atoms, however, are not blocked and can move freely through the system, as in a superfluid. “The exceptional aspect is that Bose-Einstein condensates have little to do with solids. This is the first time that a solid has been made with bosonic particles identical to each other and therefore indistinguishable, which remain free to move, typical properties of superfluids. We made the experimental discovery in a new laboratory at the CNR-INO of Pisa, thanks to the innovative ideas and creative work of the team which includes both experienced and young researchers, including Eleonora Lucioni and Luca Tanzi. The fact that our discovery is interesting and opens up a new direction to understand the properties of quantum materials is revealed by the strong interest of the scientific community, with the main foreign laboratories that immediately set to work to reproduce our system and explore its properties, as it has reported a recent article in Physics. The competition to discover the properties of this new state of matter has now been set in motion, and I now hope to obtain maximum support from the Italian research institutions.”

“This difficult experiment and this brilliant outcome are the result of a close collaboration between the groups of Florence and Pisa — say Carlo Gabbanini and Andrea Fioretti of the CNR-INO of Pisa — with complementary skills that allow us to work in an innovative way. Thanks to the support of the CNR INO, where this project has found international expertise on atomic physics and lasers, we have succeeded in creating a stimulating research environment that is attracting young scientists from all over Italy. Now it is up to our institutional bodies to provide essential support so as to promote and sustain cutting-edge research in an extremely competitive international climate. “

This research has been funded by the European Commission through the H2020 project QUIC — Quantum Simulations of Insulators and Conductors and by CNR-INO.

Publication
date
10 May 2019
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