Exploring supersolids of single-microwave shielded molecules via exact and mean-field theories
Arnone Cardinale, Tiziano LU
; Bland, Thomas
LU
and Reimann, Stephanie M.
LU
(2026)
In Communications Physics
9(1).
- Abstract
Ultracold polar molecular gases provide a powerful platform for exploring quantum many-body physics with strong, long-range, and anisotropic interactions. In this work, we develop an extended Gross-Pitaevskii approach tailored to bosonic dipolar molecules under single-microwave shielding, incorporating their effective interactions and adapting the quantum fluctuation corrections. We benchmark this beyond-mean-field theory against exact path-integral Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Focusing on the regime of positive scattering lengths, we find excellent agreement across a range of quantum phases, including superfluid, supersolid, and droplet states. We show that elliptic microwave polarization induces anisotropic superfluidity with... (More)
Ultracold polar molecular gases provide a powerful platform for exploring quantum many-body physics with strong, long-range, and anisotropic interactions. In this work, we develop an extended Gross-Pitaevskii approach tailored to bosonic dipolar molecules under single-microwave shielding, incorporating their effective interactions and adapting the quantum fluctuation corrections. We benchmark this beyond-mean-field theory against exact path-integral Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Focusing on the regime of positive scattering lengths, we find excellent agreement across a range of quantum phases, including superfluid, supersolid, and droplet states. We show that elliptic microwave polarization induces anisotropic superfluidity with direction-dependent sound velocities along each spatial axis—an effect absent in atomic dipolar gases. A quasi-one-dimensional theory captures roton softening and predicts roton instabilities tunable via ellipticity. While most experiments rely on double-microwave shielding to reduce losses, we demonstrate that single-shielded molecules already support rich and tunable many-body behavior. Our framework is readily extendable to the double-shielded case. This work establishes a versatile theoretical foundation for ultracold molecular gases and opens the door to future studies with more advanced shielding protocols.
(Less)
- author
- Arnone Cardinale, Tiziano
LU
; Bland, Thomas
LU
and Reimann, Stephanie M.
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026-12
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Communications Physics
- volume
- 9
- issue
- 1
- article number
- 191
- publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105040679373
- ISSN
- 2399-3650
- DOI
- 10.1038/s42005-026-02706-4
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a5942dab-e201-455e-a0b8-ea7303e3f4e8
- date added to LUP
- 2026-07-02 09:27:53
- date last changed
- 2026-07-02 09:28:25
@article{a5942dab-e201-455e-a0b8-ea7303e3f4e8,
abstract = {{<p>Ultracold polar molecular gases provide a powerful platform for exploring quantum many-body physics with strong, long-range, and anisotropic interactions. In this work, we develop an extended Gross-Pitaevskii approach tailored to bosonic dipolar molecules under single-microwave shielding, incorporating their effective interactions and adapting the quantum fluctuation corrections. We benchmark this beyond-mean-field theory against exact path-integral Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Focusing on the regime of positive scattering lengths, we find excellent agreement across a range of quantum phases, including superfluid, supersolid, and droplet states. We show that elliptic microwave polarization induces anisotropic superfluidity with direction-dependent sound velocities along each spatial axis—an effect absent in atomic dipolar gases. A quasi-one-dimensional theory captures roton softening and predicts roton instabilities tunable via ellipticity. While most experiments rely on double-microwave shielding to reduce losses, we demonstrate that single-shielded molecules already support rich and tunable many-body behavior. Our framework is readily extendable to the double-shielded case. This work establishes a versatile theoretical foundation for ultracold molecular gases and opens the door to future studies with more advanced shielding protocols.</p>}},
author = {{Arnone Cardinale, Tiziano and Bland, Thomas and Reimann, Stephanie M.}},
issn = {{2399-3650}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
publisher = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
series = {{Communications Physics}},
title = {{Exploring supersolids of single-microwave shielded molecules via exact and mean-field theories}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42005-026-02706-4}},
doi = {{10.1038/s42005-026-02706-4}},
volume = {{9}},
year = {{2026}},
}