A new kind of Feshbach resonance

Yb Lab

We report on the experimental observation of a strongly interacting gas of ultracold two-electron fermions with an orbital degree of freedom and magnetically tunable interactions. This realization has been enabled by the demonstration of a novel kind of Feshbach resonance occurring in the scattering of two 173Yb atoms in different nuclear and electronic states. The strongly interacting regime at resonance is evidenced by the observation of anisotropic hydrodynamic expansion of the two-orbital Fermi gas. These results pave the way towards the realization of new quantum states of matter with strongly correlated fermions with an orbital degree of freedom.

G. Pagano et al.,
Strongly Interacting Gas of Two-Electron Fermions at an Orbital Feshbach Resonance
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 265301 (2015)

See also the Physics Viewpoint by S. Cornish:

S. Cornish
Controlling Collisions in a Two-Electron Atomic Gas
Physics 8, 125 (2015)