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Pauli Crystal Superradiance
Daniel Ortuño-Gonzalez1, Rui Lin2, Justyna Stefaniak3
1ETH Zürich, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 27, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
Physical Review Letters
|March 13, 2026
Summary
Pauli crystals, unique structures of fermions, can transition to superradiance when coupled to a cavity. This leads to a genuine quantum crystalline state, demonstrating a new path to quantum crystallization.
Area of Science:
- Quantum physics
- Condensed matter physics
- Atomic physics
Background:
- Pauli crystals are geometric structures of noninteracting fermions.
- They emerge from Fermi statistics and confinement, not interparticle interactions.
- Pauli crystals exhibit many-body correlations without breaking translation symmetry.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore Pauli crystal formation in a cavity-fermion system.
- To investigate the transition to superradiance and quantum crystallization.
- To understand the role of light-mediated interactions.
Main Methods:
- Analytical calculations for cavity-fermion coupling.
- Investigating degeneracy-induced transitions.
- State-of-the-art numerical simulations.
Main Results:
- Degeneracy in Pauli crystals triggers zero-threshold superradiance transitions when coupled to a cavity.
- Superradiance is accompanied by the emergence of a genuine quantum crystalline state.
- Atomic density becomes periodically modulated in the crystalline state.
Conclusions:
- The interplay of statistics, geometry, and light-mediated interactions offers a novel pathway to quantum crystallization.
- Cavity coupling enables a transition from Pauli crystals to true quantum crystals.
- This research opens new avenues for creating and studying quantum crystalline states.
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