22 Jan 2021 Share:
A new type of quantum droplet - the most dilute liquids ever experimentally observed - helps unravel the mechanism leading to the formation of one dimensional self-bound quantum liquids in free space. Researchers present a microscopic theory of lattice quantum droplets.
Image: One dimensional quantum lattice liquids.
Credit: I. Morera et al. Phys. Rev. Lett
Liquids are ubiquitous in Nature: from the water that we consume daily to superfluid helium which is a quantum liquid appearing at temperatures as low as only a few degrees above the absolute zero. A common feature of these vastly different liquids is being self-bound in free space in the form of droplets. Understanding from a microscopic perspective how a liquid is formed by adding particles one by one is a significant challenge.