2016/01/31 by Igor Ferrier-Barbut, Holger Kadau, Matthias Schmitt +2 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.quant-gas #physics.atom-ph #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.116.215301
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 215301 (2016)
arxiv created 2016/03/18 · arxiv updated 2016/05/25
Quantum fluctuations are the origin of genuine quantum many-body effects, and can be neglected in classical mean-field phenomena. Here we report on the observation of stable quantum droplets containing ∼ 800 atoms which are expected to collapse at the mean-field level due to the essentially attractive interaction. By systematic measurements on individual droplets we demonstrate quantitatively that quantum fluctuations stabilize them against the mean-field collapse. We observe in addition interference of several droplets indicating that this stable many-body state is phase coherent.