Bose-Einstein condensates of microwave-dressed NaCs molecules

Microwave dressing of ultracold dipolar molecules has enabled the extreme suppression of collisional losses [1] and played a key role in realizing Bose–Einstein condensates of dipolar molecules [2]. In this poster, we show that dressing dipolar molecules with σ+ and π microwave fields suppresses collisional losses below the detection threshold while enabling tunable dipole-dipole interactions with different anisotropies. The long lifetime of the BEC offers a quantum-degenerate system where dipolar interactions dominate. Here we report the electrostriction of a molecular BEC arising from non-axially symmetric dipolar interactions induced by an elliptical σ microwave field. We compare the measured condensate sizes and aspect ratios with ab initio predictions based on the extended Gross–Pitaevskii equation and discuss the role of quantum fluctuations in stabilizing against mean-field collapse.