Two-Dimensional Quantum Droplets in a Mixture of Bose-Einstein Condensates
Abstract
Quantum droplets represent a striking manifestation of beyond-mean-field physics, with properties that depend sensitively on dimensionality. Although quantum droplets have been experimentally realized in one and three dimensions, their realization in two dimensions has remained elusive. Here, we observe the formation of a two-dimensional (2D) quantum droplet in a quasi-2D geometry by transferring the single-component Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) into a spin mixture in the Lee-Huang-Yang (LHY) regime, where the LHY effect evidently deviates from its three-dimensional form. We find that, in our scheme, 2D quantum droplets are more stable and exhibit longer lifetimes than previously reported quantum droplets. By instead transferring the initial BECs into another single-spin state with a negative scattering length, we generate 2D Townes solitons. A comparison between the two types of self-bound states shows that, whereas 2D Townes solitons are stable only near a critical atom number determined by the scattering length, 2D quantum droplets remain well-defined and self-bound over a much broader parameter range. These realizations of quantum droplets and Townes solitons in two dimensions provide new insights into self-bound states and open new avenues for exploring nonlinear dynamics in quantum liquids.
Related
- Mixed bubbles in a binary mixture of spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates
- Homogeneous attractive Bose-Einstein condensates with repulsive three-body interactions: the two-dimensional case
- Homogeneous attractive Bose-Einstein condensates with repulsive three-body interactions: the one-dimensional case
- Transdimensional quantum droplets in an optically trapped Bose mixture
- Stable three-dimensional lattice solitons in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates
BibTeX
@misc{zhang2026twodimensional,
title = {{Two-Dimensional Quantum Droplets in a Mixture of Bose-Einstein Condensates}},
author = {Yue Zhang and Liangchao Chen and Wei Han and Linshan Gong and Yazhou Wang and Zekui Wang and Xinhao Liang and Wenjie Sui and Pengjun Wang and Lianghui Huang and Zengming Meng and Zhuxiong Ye and Jing Zhang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.26449},
eprint = {2610.26449},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26449},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Two-Dimensional Quantum Droplets in a Mixture of Bose-Einstein Condensates
AU - Yue Zhang
AU - Liangchao Chen
AU - Wei Han
AU - Linshan Gong
AU - Yazhou Wang
AU - Zekui Wang
AU - Xinhao Liang
AU - Wenjie Sui
AU - Pengjun Wang
AU - Lianghui Huang
AU - Zengming Meng
AU - Zhuxiong Ye
AU - Jing Zhang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.26449
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.26449
AB - Quantum droplets represent a striking manifestation of beyond-mean-field physics, with properties that depend sensitively on dimensionality. Although quantum droplets have been experimentally realized in one and three dimensions, their realization in two dimensions has remained elusive. Here, we observe the formation of a two-dimensional (2D) quantum droplet in a quasi-2D geometry by transferring the single-component Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) into a spin mixture in the Lee-Huang-Yang (LHY) regime, where the LHY effect evidently deviates from its three-dimensional form. We find that, in our scheme, 2D quantum droplets are more stable and exhibit longer lifetimes than previously reported quantum droplets. By instead transferring the initial BECs into another single-spin state with a negative scattering length, we generate 2D Townes solitons. A comparison between the two types of self-bound states shows that, whereas 2D Townes solitons are stable only near a critical atom number determined by the scattering length, 2D quantum droplets remain well-defined and self-bound over a much broader parameter range. These realizations of quantum droplets and Townes solitons in two dimensions provide new insights into self-bound states and open new avenues for exploring nonlinear dynamics in quantum liquids.
ER -