TITLE: Experiments with a Strongly-interacting Degenerate Fermi Gas

SPEAKER: Professor John E. Thomas

Recent theory suggests that strongly interacting Fermi systems exhibit universal behavior. Hence, experiments which explore the dynamics of strongly interacting atomic Fermi gases provide measurements of parameters relevant to systems ranging from compact stellar objects to strongly correlated electrons. We use all-optical methods to produce a highly degenerate, two-component gas of fermionic ⁶Li atoms at a temperature less than 50 nK. An applied magnetic field (870 G) tunes the system to a collisional resonance where strong interactions are observed. This system provides an excellent starting point for studies of universal interactions and the onset of superfluidity at very high transition temperatures. I will describe measurements of novel hydrodynamics which may be a sign of superfluidity and measurements of the universal interaction energy which are in reasonable agreement with predictions for nuclear matter.