Realization of a Strongly Interacting Fermi Gas of Dipolar Atoms

TL;DR

This paper reports the creation of a strongly interacting dipolar Fermi gas of erbium atoms, demonstrating tunable interactions, stability in the strongly interacting regime, and paving the way for studies of superfluidity with dipolar interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to realize and control a strongly interacting dipolar Fermi gas of erbium atoms with high stability and tunable interactions.

Findings

Identification of a broad Feshbach resonance

Mapping of interspin scattering length

Demonstration of collisional stability in the strongly interacting regime

Abstract

We realize a two-component dipolar Fermi gas with tunable interactions, using erbium atoms. Employing a lattice-protection technique, we selectively prepare deeply degenerate mixtures of the two lowest spin states and perform high-resolution Feshbach spectroscopy in an optical dipole trap. We identify a comparatively broad Feshbach resonance and map the interspin scattering length in its vicinity. The Fermi mixture shows a remarkable collisional stability in the strongly interacting regime, providing a first step towards studies of superfluid pairing, crossing from Cooper pairs to bound molecules, in presence of dipole-dipole interactions.