title: Nonadiabatic preparation of spin crystals with ultracold polar molecules.
abstract: We study the growth dynamics of ordered structures of strongly interacting polar molecules in optical lattices. Using a dipole blockade of microwave excitations, we map the system onto an interacting spin-1/2 model possessing ground states with crystalline order, and describe a way to prepare these states by nonadiabatically driving the transitions between molecular rotational levels. The proposed technique bypasses the need to cross a phase transition and allows for the creation of ordered domains of considerably larger size compared to approaches relying on adiabatic preparation.
authors.affiliation: ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. mikhail.lemeshko@gmail.com
authors.forename: Mikhail
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lemeshko
authors.forename: Roman V
authors.initials: RV
authors.lastname: Krems
authors.forename: Hendrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Weimer