Observation of Quantum Droplets in a Strongly Dipolar Bose Gas.

Quantum fluctuations are the origin of genuine quantum many-body effects, and can be neglected in classical mean-field phenomena. Here, we report on the observation of stable quantum droplets containing ∼800 atoms that are expected to collapse at the mean-field level due to the essentially attractive interaction. By systematic measurements on individual droplets we demonstrate quantitatively that quantum fluctuations mechanically stabilize them against the mean-field collapse. We observe in addition the interference of several droplets indicating that this stable many-body state is phase coherent.

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