Trimer liquids and crystals of polar molecules in coupled wires

We investigate the pairing and crystalline instabilities of bosonic and fermionic polar molecules confined to a ladder geometry. By means of analytical and quasi-exact numerical techniques, we show that gases of composite molecular dimers as well as trimers can be stabilized as a function of the density difference between the wires. A shallow optical lattice can pin both liquids, realizing crystals of composite bosons or fermions. We show that these exotic quantum phases should be realizable under current experimental conditions in finite-size confining potentials.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures plus additional material; Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Sonic analog of gravitational black holes in Bose-Einstein condensates

It is shown that, in dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensates, there exist both dynamically stable and unstable configurations which, in the hydrodynamic limit, exhibit a behavior resembling that of gravitational black holes. The dynamical instabilities involve creation of quasiparticle pairs in positive and negative energy states, as in the well-known suggested mechanism for black hole evaporation. We propose a scheme to generate a stable sonic black hole in a ring trap.Comment: RevTeX 3.1, 1 figure, 4 page