Sommerschule 2024

Experiments with ultracold quantum gases of neutral atoms, the case of magnetic lanthanides

Lauriane Chomaz

Ultracold quantum gases provide a pristine platform with an extraordinary degree of control. Over the past few decades, this platform has been used with great success to study both few-body and many-body phenomena in a wide variety of geometries and interaction settings. A special case is realized by atoms with large magnetic dipole moments in their electronic ground states. For such species, long-range anisotropic dipole-dipole interactions compete with the more conventional contact interactions. Most notably, mastering this competition has led to the discovery of novel many-body quantum states in recent years, including liquid-like droplets, droplet crystals, and supersolids.

In this series of lectures, I would like to give an overview of the field of ultracold atoms and of the case of magnetic species in particular. I will review experimental techniques for cooling, trapping, probing, and manipulating such gases, discuss key experiments, and provide insights into the few-body and many-body phenomena that can be studied in such settings.