Fermi-Bose and Bose-Bose K-Rb quantum degenerate mixtures

摘要

The important achievements in the field of quantum electronics, which motivated giving a Nobel Prize to Prokhorov in 1964, have made possible decades of revolutionary progress in several fields of science. One of the greatest recent revolutions has been the production of ultracold atoms, which is possible also through the use of lasers. In this contribution, we illustrate our experiments with ultracold mixtures composed of potassium and rubidium atoms. Potassium isotopes are cooled down to quantum degeneracy by means of sympathetic cooling with rubidium [1]. We can produce both a stable two-species Bose-Einstein condensate [2], mixing together Rb-87 and K-41, and a degenerate system composed of a Bose-Einstein condensate of Rb-87 immersed in a Fermi gas of K-40 atoms [3]. In this case, the strong interspecies interaction can overwhelm the mutual repulsion between fermions, leading to the collapse of the degenerate Fermi gas [4]. [References: 36]