Supersolid simulations

摘要

Supersolids - substances that are crystalline but also behave as free-flowing superfluids - can exist, according to quantum theory. Models now suggest a route to the clinching experimental evidence. Quantum theory predicts the existence of several phases of matter that have counterintuitive properties. Some of these phases -such as superconductors, through which electricity flows without resistance, and super-fluids, which flowwithout friction - have been experimentally verified and have assumed major roles in science and technology. Others, such as atomic supersolids, are more elusive Supersolids have seemingly mutually exclusive properties: they are rigid crystals with well-defined, long-range spatial order, but they can also behave as if they aresuperfluids. Writing in Physical Review A, Scarola and colleagues1 propose a method for detecting supersolids by analysing the quantum interference that occurs between atoms when released from a web of confining laser light known as an optical lattice.The great advantage of this technique is that it measures the defining signatures of superfluidity and spatial order directly, and could therefore answer long-standing questions on the existence and properties of supersolid matter.