Exploring the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in a two-dimensional dipolar bose gas.

Abstract

Long-range and anisotropic dipolar interactions induce complex order in quantum systems, particularly interesting in 2D where superfluidity emerges via the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) mechanism. We observe a superfluid phase with algebraically decaying correlation in a quasi-2D dipolar Bose gas of erbium atoms and further identify the superfluid phase transition by monitoring extended coherence. We also measure equations of state with tunable dipolar interactions. Our findings show a transition point shift due to dipole orientation, aligning with BKT transition with effective short-range interaction. However, we observe that in-plane tilted dipoles show nonlocal effects in the superfluid regime, preventing the effective short-range interaction from revealing universal behavior near the BKT critical point. We also measure anisotropic atom number fluctuations in the superfluid regime, highlighting its dipolar nature. Our results provide a foundation for understanding dipolar bosons in 2D and pave the way for investigating complex orders in dipolar superfluids.