Few trapped quantum dipoles: quantum versus classical structures

We analyze the ground state of a two-dimensional quantum system of a few strongly confined dipolar bosons. Dipoles arrange in different stable structures that depend on the tilting polarization angle and the anisotropy of the confining trap. To this end, we use the exact diffusion Monte Carlo method and the quantum results are compared with classical ones obtained by stochastic optimization using simulated annealing. We establish the stability domains for the different patterns and estimate the transition boundaries delimiting them. Our results show significant differences between the classical and quantum regimes which are mainly due to the quantum kinetic energy. (paper)