A two-dimensional algebraic quantum liquid produced by an atomic simulator of the quantum Lifshitz model

Bosons have a natural instinct to condense at zero temperature. It is a long-standing challenge to create a high-dimensional quantum liquid that does not exhibit long-range order at the ground state, as either extreme experimental parameters or sophisticated designs of microscopic Hamiltonians are required for suppressing the condensation. Here we show that synthetic gauge fields for ultracold atoms, using either the Raman scheme or shaken lattices, provide physicists a simple and practical scheme to produce a two-dimensional algebraic quantum liquid at the ground state. This quantum liquid arises at a critical Lifshitz point, where a two-dimensional quartic dispersion emerges in the momentum space, and many fundamental properties of two-dimensional bosons are changed in its proximity. Such an ideal simulator of the quantum Lifshitz model allows experimentalists to directly visualize and explore the deconfinement transition of topological excitations, an intriguing phenomenon that is difficult to access in other systems.