Collisional stability of a three-component degenerate Fermi gas

TL;DR

This paper reports the creation and analysis of a three-component degenerate Fermi gas of $^6$Li atoms, exploring its collisional stability and three-body loss characteristics across various magnetic fields.

Contribution

It introduces a new three-component Fermi system with tunable interactions and provides detailed measurements of its stability and loss coefficients.

Findings

Identified a significant loss feature at 130 G.

Measured three-body loss coefficients spanning three orders of magnitude.

Prepared large, cold samples of three hyperfine states of $^6$Li.

Abstract

We report on the creation of a degenerate Fermi gas consisting of a balanced mixture of atoms in three different hyperfine states of $^6$Li. This new system consists of three distinguishable Fermions with different and tunable interparticle scattering lengths $a_{12}$, $a_{13}$ and $a_{23}$. We are able to prepare samples containing $5 \cdot 10^4$ atoms in each state at a temperature of about $215 $nK, which corresponds to $T/T_F \approx 0.37$. We investigated the collisional stability of the gas for magnetic fields between 0 and 600 G and found a prominent loss feature at 130 G. From lifetime measurements we determined three-body loss coefficients, which vary over nearly three orders of magnitude.