Freiburg 2024 – scientific programme

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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik

MO 17: Poster: Cold Molecules

MO 17.6: Poster

Wednesday, March 13, 2024, 17:00–19:00, Tent C

Towards a Fermi gas of lithium-rubidium molecules — •Christine Frank, Yunxuan Lu, and Xin-Yu Luo — Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching, Germany

I present our progress on building a new setup for producing a Fermi gas of lithium-rubidium (LiRb) molecules. LiRb, with its large dipole moment and high rotational constant, exhibits substantially longer lifetimes and field-linked resonances at lower microwave field strengths than NaK fermionic molecules. These traits facilitate studying the rich phase diagram of a molecular Fermi gas near a field-linked resonance, ranging from a p-wave superfluid of spin-polarized dimers to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of dipolar tetramers. Our compact vacuum setup comprises two sequential 2D magneto-optical traps and a science cell housing the dual-species 3D. We aim to create 10^6 degenerate LiRb Feshbach molecules in an optically levitated box potential, crucial for reaching temperatures below the critical temperature of tetramer BEC formation. To boost the Li flux in our compact arrangement, we're integrating a Zeeman slowing laser beam into the Li 2D MOT, counter-propagating to the atomic trajectories from the oven. Our simulation suggests a sixtyfold increase in Li atom flux, promising a good starting point for producing a large double-degenerate Bose-Fermi atomic mixture and subsequently a deeply degenerate Fermi gas of LiRb molecules.

Keywords: Quantum simulation; p-wave superfluid; ultra-cold molecules; Magneto-Optical Trap