An Experiment on Quantum-Degenerate Fermi-Bose Mixtures of ⁴⁰K and ⁸⁷Rb

Silke Ospelkaus-Schwarzer

Silke Ospelkaus-Schwarzer, Christian Ospelkaus, Marlon Nakat, Oliver Wille, Kai Bongs and Klaus Sengstock
Institut für Laser-Physik, Universität Hamburg, Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany

We present an experiment on a quantum-degenerate mixture of fermionic 40K and bosonic 87Rb atoms. The apparatus is based on a two-species 2D-/3D-MOT setup and an optimized Ioffe-type magnetic trap. Our setup is designed for experiments in deep three-dimensional optical lattices and promises to be a versatile model system for solid state theories. Projected experiments cover single-particle and collective excitations, fermion correlations and investigations on the possibility of observing a BCS-type phase transition in a 3D-optical lattice. We have recently produced a Bose-Einstein condensate of 87Rb atoms and have observed sympathetic cooling of fermionic 40K. We will present the current status of the experiment and our latest experimental results.