Ultracold atomic physics offers myriad possibilities to study strongly
correlated many-body systems in lower dimensions. Typically, only ground state
phases are accessible. Using a tunable quantum gas of bosonic cesium atoms, we
realize and control in one dimensional geometry a highly excited quantum phase
that is stabilized in the presence of attractive interactions by maintaining
and strengthening quantum correlations across a confinement-induced resonance.
We diagnose the crossover from repulsive to attractive interactions in terms of
the stiffness and the energy of the system. Our results open up the
experimental study of metastable excited many-body phases with strong
correlations and their dynamical properties