Title: Fermi mixtures of ultracold atoms

Antje Ludewig - Oct 05 2009

Abstract

In the field of ultracold atoms the interest has shifted in recent years towards cold Fermi systems and
especially mixtures of different spin states or atomic species. Ultracold atoms can act as model system for
other fields of physics. The pairing of fermions and superfluidity of fermions is present in many phenomena,
such as liquid Helium and high temperature superconductors. Strongly interacting fermions play a role in neutron stars and the quark-gluon plasma. 

In ultracold gases the interaction between the fermions can be tuned with the help of Feshbach resonances
which in may cases still need to be identified and located. We have constructed an apparatus to create ultracold mixtures of the fermionic alkali isotopes 40K and 6Li. In my talk I will explain the experimental steps to get to a cold mixture focusing on the preparation and diagnostics of spin mixtures in 40K and the progress made towards identifying Feshbach resonances in 40K.