Electrostriction in a Bose-Einstein Condensate of Dipolar Molecules
How to squeeze and spin a quantum gas made of molecules
Physicists created a bizarre state of matter—a Bose-Einstein condensate of dipolar molecules—and discovered they could stretch it into an ellipse using carefully tuned microwave fields. By twisting the orientation of these fields, they could make the entire condensate rotate, offering a new way to study exotic quantum behaviors like vortices and superfluidity in systems dominated by long-range interactions.
Rotating quantum gases are laboratories for studying deep physics that's hard to access otherwise—phenomena like superfluidity and supersolidity that break ordinary rules. This electrostriction technique gives experimenters a practical knob to turn, making it easier to create and manipulate these extreme states and test predictions about how matter behaves when quantum effects and molecular interactions collide.