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Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Heating a dipolar quantum fluid into a solid
J Sánchez-Baena1,2, C Politi3,4, F Maucher5,6
1Center for Complex Quantum Systems, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, DK-8000, Aarhus C, Denmark. jsbaena@phys.au.dk.
Abstract:
Raising the temperature of a material enhances the thermal motion of particles. Such an increase in thermal energy commonly leads to the melting of a solid into a fluid and eventually vaporises the liquid into a gaseous phase of matter. Here, we study the finite-temperature physics of dipolar quantum fluids and find surprising deviations from this general phenomenology. In particular, we describe how heating a dipolar superfluid from near-zero temperatures can induce a phase transition to a supersolid state with a broken translational symmetry. We discuss the observation of this effect in experiments on ultracold dysprosium atoms, which opens the door for exploring the unusual thermodynamics of dipolar quantum fluids.
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