Dipolar quantum solids emerging in a Hubbard quantum simulator

Long-range interactions play an important role in nature; however, quantum simulations of lattice systems have largely not been able to realize such interactions. A wide range of efforts are underway to explore long-range interacting lattice systems using AMO and condensed matter platforms. We achieve novel quantum phases in a strongly correlated lattice system with long-range dipolar interactions using ultracold magnetic erbium atoms. As we tune the dipolar interaction to be the dominant energy scale in our system, we observe quantum phase transitions from a superfluid into dipolar quantum solids, which we directly detect using site-resolved quantum gas microscopy. Furthermore, we study quantum phase transitions in the context of $Z_2$ lattice gauge theory by mapping the hard-core Bose-Hubbard model to the mixed-dimensional spin model. In addition, we share progress toward studying extended Fermi-Hubbard physics with the fermionic isotope of erbium. This work demonstrates that novel strongly correlated quantum phases can be studied using dipolar interaction in optical lattices, opening the door to quantum simulations of a wide range of lattice models with long-range and anisotropic interactions.