English

Self-Bound Droplets of Ultracold Dipolar Molecules under Tunable Double Microwave Shielding

Quantum Gases 2026-07-07 v1

Abstract

We use the Ground-State Path Integral Monte Carlo method to study a Bose-Einstein condensate of strongly interacting NaCs polar molecules under the action of a fully anisotropic double microwave shielding potential characterized by a linear and an elliptical polarization field. In particular, we analyze the ground state of the system and its structure as a function of the ellipticity angle ξ\xi. While for the circularly polarized case (ξ=0\xi=0) a gas phase is realized, one or more self-bound droplets are observed for small ξ|\xi|'s above a threshold value near 33^\circ. With increasing ξ\xi, the observed droplets rapidly become tightly bound and are estimated to form a superfluid array. Our results compare favorably to the experimental observations in [Zhang et al., Nature \textbf{651}, 601 (2026)] for positive ξ\xi, while moderate differences show up for ξ<0\xi<0 where our simulations conform to the expected symmetries of the intermolecular potential.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.06130,
  title  = {Self-Bound Droplets of Ultracold Dipolar Molecules under Tunable Double Microwave Shielding},
  author = {Roger Melero and Jordi Boronat and Ferran Mazzanti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.06130},
  year   = {2026}
}