Quantum Degenerate Dipolar Fermi Gas

We report the first quantum degenerate dipolar Fermi gas, the realization of which opens a new frontier for exploring strongly correlated physics and, in particular, quantum liquid crystalline phases. A quantum degenerate Fermi gas of the most magnetic atom Dy161 is produced by laser cooling to 10μK before sympathetically cooling with ultracold, bosonic Dy162. The temperature of the spin-polarized Dy161 is a factor T/T_F=0.2 below the Fermi temperature T_F=300nK. The cotrapped Dy162 concomitantly cools to approximately T_c for Bose-Einstein condensation, thus realizing a novel, nearly quantum degenerate dipolar Bose-Fermi gas mixture. Additionally, we achieve the forced evaporative cooling of spin-polarized Dy161 without Dy162 to T/T_F=0.7. That such a low temperature ratio is achieved may be a first signature of universal dipolar scattering.