Dipolar BECs are ultracold quantum gases made of atoms or molecules that possess a permanent magnetic or electric dipole moment. Unlike conventional BECs with only short-range contact interactions, dipolar BECs exhibit long-range and anisotropic dipole–dipole interactions, leading to rich and exotic quantum behavior.
Dipolar BECs offer a unique platform for investigating various quantum many-body phenomena, including:
Supersolidity: A state of matter exhibiting both superfluidity and a crystalline structure.
Quantum droplets: Self-bound states of matter that are stable due to quantum fluctuations.
Anisotropic superfluidity: The expansion of the condensate can be controlled by the orientation of the magnetic field.
Vortex dynamics: The study of vortices in dipolar BECs can reveal insights into superfluidity and turbulence
Spinor BEC
Overview: Spinor BECs are ultracold quantum gases composed of atoms with internal spin degrees of freedom, allowing multiple hyperfine spin states to coexist coherently in a condensate.
Due to the interplay between the kinetic energy, interaction energy, and spin-dependent interactions, spinor BECs exhibit a rich phase diagram with various phases like ferromagnetic, polar, and nematic phases.
Spinor BECs can host various topological defects like vortices, skyrmions, and domain walls, which are stabilized by the interplay of spin and interactions.
Active frontier: Ongoing research explores turbulence, skyrmion dynamics, spin–orbit coupling, supersolidity, and more.
Polariton condensate
Overview:
Polariton condensates are quantum fluids formed by polaritons- bosonic quasiparticles thatare coherent mixtures of light (photons) with excitons (electron-hole pairs) in a solid-state system, typically inside an optical cavity.
This hybridization leads to dressed photons that acquire:
Light effective mass:unlike atomic BECs, Condensation can occur at relatively high temperatures, even at room temperature.
Strong interactions inherited from the excitonic component→ enable collective many-body behavior.
Polariton condensates behave like bosonic quantum fluids and exhibit macroscopic quantum phenomena, such as Bose-Einstein condensation, at much higher temperatures than atomic gases.
Active frontier:
These systems offer a powerful platform for exploring non-equilibrium dynamics, quantum coherence, and light–matter interactions.