paper

Quantum degenerate dipolar Fermi gas

arXiv:1202.4444 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.215301

Abstract

The interplay between crystallinity and superfluidity is of great fundamental and technological interest in condensed matter settings. In particular, electronic quantum liquid crystallinity arises in the non-Fermi liquid, pseudogap regime neighboring a cuprate's unconventional superconducting phase. While the techniques of ultracold atomic physics and quantum optics have enabled explorations of the strongly correlated, many-body physics inherent in, e.g., the Hubbard model, lacking has been the ability to create a quantum degenerate Fermi gas with interparticle interactions---such as the strong dipole-dipole interaction---capable of inducing analogs to electronic quantum liquid crystals. We report the first quantum degenerate dipolar Fermi gas, the realization of which opens a new frontier for exploring strongly correlated physics and, in particular, the quantum melting of smectics in the pristine environment provided by the ultracold atomic physics setting. A quantum degenerate Fermi gas of the most magnetic atom 161Dy is produced by laser cooling to 10 uK before sympathetically cooling with ultracold, bosonic 162Dy. The temperature of the spin-polarized 161Dy is a factor T/TF=0.2 below the Fermi temperature TF=300 nK. The co-trapped 162Dy concomitantly cools to approximately Tc for Bose-Einstein condensation, thus realizing a novel, nearly quantum degenerate dipolar Bose-Fermi gas mixture.

6 pages, 3 figures

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