Dy confocal cQED

Our group has pioneered the creation and study of Bose and Fermi-degenerate gases of dysprosium, the most magnetic element.  In our experiments, we exploit the long-range and anisotropic character of the dipole-dipole interaction among Dy atoms to create novel testbeds for quantum many-body physics, both within and away from equilibrium.  For example, we recently made a quantum and magnetic version of the famous Newton's cradle toy.  We used it to explore the breakdown of quantum integrability and the onset of thermalization in a strongly interacting quantum 1D system. We've also used a new topological pumping scheme---that works like an Archimedes screw---to drive the 1D gas to highly excited "quantum many-body scar" states.  We will now aim to explore these prethermal states and others using the coupling of the gas to photons in our new confocal cavity QED system.