Development of an apparatus for cooling 6Li-87Rb Fermi-Bose mixtures in a light-assisted magnetic trap

We describe an experimental setup designed to produce ultracold trapped gas clouds of fermionic Li-6 and bosonic Rb-87. This combination of alkali metals has the potential to reach deeper Fermi degeneracy with respect to other mixtures since it allows for improved heat capacity matching which optimizes sympathetic cooling efficiency. Atomic beams of the two species are independently produced and then decelerated by Zeeman slowers. The slowed atoms are collected into a magneto-optical trap and then transferred into a quadrupole magnetic trap. An ultracold Fermi gas with temperature in the 10(-3)T(F) range should be attainable through selective confinement of the two species via a properly detuned laser beam focused in the center of the magnetic trap.