Observation of Quantum Phase Transitions with Parity-Symmetry Breaking and Hysteresis

Understand

Symmetry-breaking quantum phase transitions play a key role in several condensed matter, cosmology and nuclear physics theoretical models.

• Its observation in real systems is often hampered by finite temperatures and limited control of the system parameters.
• In this work we report for the first time the experimental observation of the full quantum phase diagram across a transition where the spatial parity symmetry is broken.
• Our system is made of an ultra-cold gas with tunable attractive interactions trapped in a spatially symmetric double-well potential.