Describing an exotic magnetic transition

Making magnetic atoms interact Two magnets interact with each other through a force that depends on the distance between them and on their mutual orientation. How do these long-range dipolar forces affect the behavior of a system of many magnets? Baier et al. used a gas of erbium atoms, which have a large magnetic moment, to answer this question. The gas—which they “housed” in an optical lattice— underwent a transition from a superfluid to an insulating state, revealing the presence of dipolar interactions through the orientation dependence of various properties. — JS