Dynamic stabilization of a quantum many-body spin system

Abstract: We demonstrate dynamic stabilization of an unstable strongly interacting quantum many-body system by periodic manipulation of the phase of the collective states. The experiment employs a spin-1 atomic Bose condensate initialized to an unstable (hyperbolic) fixed point of the spin-nematic phase space, where subsequent free evolution gives rise to squeezing and quantum spin mixing. To stabilize the system, periodic microwave pulses are applied that manipulate the spin-nematic many-body fluctuations and limit their growth. The range of pulse periods and phase shifts for which the condensate can be stabilized is measured and the resulting stability diagram compares well with a linear stability analysis of the problem.