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We generated a one-dimensional quantum gas confined in an elongated optical dipole trap instead of 2D optical lattices. The sample, comprising thousands of atoms, spans several hundred micrometers and allows for independent control of temperature and chemical potential using Feshbach resonance. This allows us to directly observe and investigate the spatial distribution and associated excitation of 1D quantum gas without any ensemble averaging. In this system, we observed that the dimension of 1D gas will be popped up into 3D due to strong interaction without changing any trapping confinement. During the dimensional crossover, we found that increasing the scattering length leads to the failure of 1D theories, including 1D mean field, Yang-Yang equation, and 1D hydrodynamics. Specifically, the modified Yang-Yang equation effectively describes this 1D system at temperatures beyond the 1D threshold, but it does not account for the effects of stronger interactions. Meanwhile, we observe two possible quantized plateaus of breathing-mode oscillation frequencies predicted by 1D and 3D hydrodynamics, corresponding to weak and strong interactions, respectively. There is also a universal crossover connecting two different regimes where both hydrodynamics fail.

We demonstrate two-dimensional arrays of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) as a new experimental platform with parallel quantum simulation capability. A defect-free array of up to 49 BECs is formed by loading a single BEC with 50000 atoms into 7×7 optical wells. Each BEC is prepared with independent phases, confirmed by matterwave interference. Based on BEC arrays, we realize fast determination of the phase boundary of BECs with attractive interactions. We also observe the stochastic collapse dynamics from the distribution of atom numbers in the array. We show that the collapse of a BEC can occur much faster than the averaged decay of an ensemble. The BEC arrays enable new forms of experiments to drastically increase the measurement throughput and to quantum simulate, say, large 2D Josephson-junction arrays.

The dimensional crossover induces varieties of quantum phenomena. In this paper, we demonstrate the quantum critical dynamics under dimensional crossover involving many-body phase transitions by continuously suppressing correlations and tunnelings along one direction of bulk materials, which provides a smooth connection from higher dimensions to lower ones based on the intrinsic correlations rather than geometry tailoring. By measuring the nonadiabatic excitations, the critical scaling laws in both three and two dimensions are observed and are consistent with predictions. In addition, we find scaling behaviors for intermediate regimes with noninteger dimensions. This study provides insights to extend the descriptions of critical exponents into more general or complex scenarios.