Final Report Summary - ERBIUM (Ultracold Erbium: Exploring Exotic Quantum Gases)
The field of ultracold quantum matter is reaching a profound scientific maturity, driven by their intrinsic ability to be quantum simulators of phenomena belonging to diverse branches of physics, such as nuclear and condensed-matter physics. A key new ingredient for the field is provided by the possibility to study dipolar quantum phenomena in atomic species with large magnetic moment. The ERBIUM project successfully produced for the first time degenerate quantum gases of the strongly magnetic Erbium atoms. In 2012 we created the first Bose-Einstein condensate of erbium and shortly thereafter the first degenerate Fermi gas. Our studies have revealed an unexpectedly simple and powerful approach to quantum degeneracy and to unveil spectacular interaction properties of complex magnetic species, and to demonstrate for the first time many-body dipolar phenomena in Fermi gases.