Her research activity explores quantum phenomena in atomic gases at ultralow temperatures with contributions spanning topics including quantum matter of atoms and molecules and few-body and scattering physics. Over the last years, she focuses specifically on the strongly magnetic, and rather unexplored, Erbium and Dysprosium atomic species, realizing in 2012 world's first Bose-Einstein condensation of Erbium,[4] and in 2018 the first dipolar quantum mixture of Erbium and Dysprosium.[5] In 2019, she was able to prepare the first long-lived supersolid state, an elusive and paradoxical state where superfluid flow and crystal rigidity coexist.[6] With these systems, she has explored a variety of many-body quantum phenomena dictated by the long-range and anisotropic dipolar interaction among the atoms. In 2021 she created supersolid states along two dimensions.[7] In 2024 her team reported the observation of quantum vortices in the supersolid phase[8][9]
Awards and fellowships
Her work has earned her multiple awards, including the Grand Prix de Physique "Cécile-DeWitt Morette/École de Physique des Houches" from the French Academy of Sciences (2019),[10] the Junior BEC Award (2019),[11] the Feltrinelli Prize (2017)[12] and the Erwin Schrödinger Prize (2017),[13] the highest award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In addition, she is the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship (2013),[14] a START-Prize (2009) and three ERC Grants (Starting 2010, Consolidator 2016 and Advanced 2022)[15] She was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2019, after a nomination from the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, "for ground-breaking experiments on dipolar quantum gases of erbium atoms, including the attainment of quantum degeneracy of bosons and fermions, studies on quantum-chaotical scattering, the formation of quantum droplets, and investigations on the roton spectrum".[16][17]
^Norcia, M. A.; Politi, C.; Lauritz, K.; Poli, E.; Sohmen, M.; Mark, M. J.; Bisset, R. N.; Santos, L.; Ferlaino, F. (18 August 2021). "Two-dimensional supersolidity in a dipolar quantum gas". Nature. 596: 357–361. arXiv:2102.05555. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03725-7.