Scrambled supersolids: Soft form of a solid discovered

Science Daily  January 4, 2021 An international team of researchers (Austria, Switzerland) created supersolids using ultracold quantum gases of highly magnetic lanthanide atoms. This state of matter is solid and liquid at the same time. Due to quantum effects, a very cold gas of atoms can spontaneously develop both a crystalline order of a solid crystal and particle flow like a superfluid quantum liquid. A dipolar supersolid can be imagined as a chain of quantum droplets which communicate with each other via a superfluid background bath. They found that if the superfluid bath between the droplets is drained by control […]