Novel quantum phases in cold gases (NUANCE)

The aim of the project is to find and study new phases arising in gases of atoms interacting via two types of competing (attractive and repulsive) forces: short-range and non-local. When these forces compensate each other, new phases can be expected to appear, stabilized by quantum many-body correlations. This was the case with dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate, in which this year three groups observed a state behaving like a supersolid. Inspired by these discoveries, we will look for such phases in a broader class of physical systems, in particular in the dipolar gases and atoms trapped in the resonant cavities. First we find phase diagrams, then we classify excitations to finally investigate how the phases decay.