Production of a degenerate Fermi-Fermi mixture of dysprosium and potassium atoms

TLDR: In this paper, a mixture of fermionic and k-polar spin polarized spin polarized in their absolute ground states is realized by means of evaporative cooling of dipolar dysprosium atoms together with sympathetic cooling of the potassium atoms.

Abstract: We report on the realization of a mixture of fermionic $^{161}\mathrm{Dy}$ and fermionic $^{40}\mathrm{K}$ where both species are deep in the quantum-degenerate regime. Both components are spin polarized in their absolute ground states, and the low temperatures are achieved by means of evaporative cooling of the dipolar dysprosium atoms together with sympathetic cooling of the potassium atoms. We describe the trapping and cooling methods, in particular the final evaporation stage, which leads to Fermi degeneracy of both species. Analyzing cross-species thermalization we obtain an estimate of the magnitude of the interspecies $s$-wave scattering length at low magnetic field. We demonstrate magnetic levitation of the mixture as a tool to ensure spatial overlap of the two components. The properties of the Dy-K mixture make it a very promising candidate to explore the physics of strongly interacting mass-imbalanced Fermi-Fermi mixtures.