“Dance your PhD 2025” contest by Science and AAAS

“Dance your PhD 2025” contest by Science and AAAS

Congratulations to our PhD student Arfor, who turned our research topics into a dazzling music video!

Long-Range Interactions Workshop 2025

Long-Range Interactions Workshop 2025

Register now for the Long-Range Interactions Workshop 2025!

2025 Group Openings!

2025 Group Openings!

We are happy to announce that our dipolar quantum gas group has an Academy Scientist + Postdoc and PhD positions open for 2025!

Vortices in a supersolid

Vortices in a supersolid

2024’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics: Our research on the observation of vortices in a dipolar supersolid featured by Quanta magazine!

Austrian of the Year 2024

Austrian of the Year 2024

Francesca was crowned as the ‘Austrian of the Year’ in the research category at the Austria 24 gala by Die Presse!

Summer BBQ

Summer BBQ

Our 2024 Summer BBQ took place on the 24th of June and celebrated the many different achievements of the group!

Murder Mystery Dinner

Murder Mystery Dinner

Our 2024 group dinner took place on the 18th of January at CasoinN da Giorgio restaurant, with a 1920’s Murder Mystery theme!

Glitches in supersolids: links between neutron stars and quantum matter

Glitches in supersolids: links between neutron stars and quantum matter

By emulating the connection between a rotating supersolid phase and an external solid phase, we were able to replicate “glitches” – sudden jumps in the solid angular momentum driven by quantum vortices leaving the supersolid.

Cluster of Excellence Quantum Science Austria granted

Cluster of Excellence Quantum Science Austria granted

Three Clus­ters of Excel­lence in Inns­bruck have been funded! With highly endowed clusters of excellence, the Austrian Science Fund FWF creates Austrian flagships of basic research. The University of Innsbruck will coordinate the Cluster of Excellence for Quantum Sciences.

Bloch Oscillations

Bloch Oscillations

By letting an erbium quantum droplet fall under gravity through an optical lattice, it is possible to understand the inter-atomic interactions and quantum fluctuations through variations of the Bloch oscillation.  

Our group studies dipolar quantum gases made of  Erbium (Er) and Dysprosium (Dy) atoms. These extraordinarily magnetic species are a powerful new resource for reaching quantum simulation with strong connectivity, in which each atom is coupled to the other over long distances, and exploring exotic phases of matter that have no classical counterpart.

We have three labs: the ERBIUM LAB, where Er was Bose condensed for the first time ever, the Er-Dy LAB which studies quantum dipolar mixtures under a quantum-gas microscope, and the T-REQs LAB, where we trap Er atoms in arrays of optical tweezers for Rydberg physics. Recently, we have established a Theory Group aimed at studying and predicting dipolar phenomena in dipolar quantum gases and mixtures.

The group, led by Francesca Ferlaino, is jointly located at the  Institute for Experimental Physics (IExP) of the University of Innsbruck and at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and it is part of  the Innsbruck Center for Ultracold Atoms and Quantum Gases

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News from the labs

Lauriane and Francesca, together with Blair Blakie and Danny Bailly (Otago University), theoretically studied the supersolid phase diagram of dipolar quantum Bose gases in cylindrical geometries. The work is now published in Physical Review Research.
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Bing Yang collaborate with Had C. Halimeth, Robert Ottl, Ian P. McCulloch and Philipp Hauke in theoretically studying the robustness of an ultra cold-atom quantum simulator against defects.
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Our publication on the first-time observation of roton quasiparticles in quantum gases was chosen by the editors of Nature Physics as one of their favorite papers of the past 15 years. To mark the anniversary of the journal, the most important works in the various disciplines of physics are presented.
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Group news

Louis Lafforgue successfully defends his Masters' thesis!
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Together with collaborators at ICFO, Barcelona, we investigate the topological nature of the bond order wave, paving the way towards an efficient quantum simulation of topological phases in many-body quantum systems
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Alex Patscheider successfully defends his PhD thesis and becomes Doctor of Philosophy!
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Welcome and goodbye

Farwell to Daniel Grün who is moving to the University of Alberta as PhD Student in the group of Lindsay J LeBlanc. We wish you all the best for your next adventure in physics.
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Welcome to Arfor, who has joined the Erbium team as PhD Student.
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After 5 productive years in the Dipolar Quantum Gas Group, Arno Trautmann is moving to the University of Tübingen as post-doc in the group of Professor Christian Groß. We wish you great success in your next adventure in physics
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