Collisional stability of a three-component degenerate Fermi gas

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.

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