Degenerate Fermi gases of ytterbium.
Evaporative cooling was performed to cool fermionic 173Yb atoms in a crossed optical dipole trap. The large elastic collision rate leads to efficient evaporation and we have successfully cooled the atoms to 0.37+/-0.06 of the Fermi temperature, that is to say, to a quantum degenerate regime. In this regime, a plunge of evaporation efficiency was observed as a result of Fermi degeneracy.
Fukuhara
Takeshi
T
Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.
Takasu
Yosuke
Y
Kumakura
Mitsutaka
M
Takahashi
Yoshiro
Y