2002/12/19 by K. M. O'Hara, S. L. Hemmer, M. E. Gehm +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.supr-con #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.1079107
published as Science Dec 13 2002: 2179-2182 · 5 pages. Version 2 corrected bibliography
arxiv created 2002/12/19 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
We report on the observation of a highly-degenerate, strongly-interacting Fermi gas of atoms. Fermionic 6Li atoms in an optical trap are evaporatively cooled to degeneracy using a magnetic field to induce strong, resonant interactions. Upon abruptly releasing the cloud from the trap, the gas is observed to expand rapidly in the transverse direction while remaining nearly stationary in the axial. We interpret the expansion dynamics in terms of collisionless superfluid and collisional hydrodynamics. For the data taken at the longest evaporation times, we find that collisional hydrodynamics does not provide a satisfactory explanation, while superfluidity is plausible.