Strongly Correlated States of Ultracold Rotating Dipolar Fermi Gases

We study strongly correlated ground and excited states of rotating quasi-2D Fermi gases constituted of a small number of dipole-dipole interacting particles with dipole moments polarized perpendicular to the plane of motion. As the number of atoms grows, the system enters {\it an intermediate regime}, where ground states are subject to a competition between distinct bulk-edge configurations. This effect obscures their description in terms of composite fermions and leads to the appearance of novel composite fermion quasi-hole states. In the presence of dipolar interactions, the principal Laughlin state at filling $\nu=1/3$ exhibits a substantial energy gap for neutral (total angular momentum conserving) excitations, and is well-described as an incompressible Fermi liquid. Instead, at lower fillings, the ground state structure favors crystalline order.