E1: Anisotropic interactions in an ultracold Dysprosium gas

This project aims at the experimental investigation of few-body collisions in Bose and Fermi gases of highly magnetic dipolar Dysprosium (Dy) atoms and their mixtures. Understanding the interactions and possibilities of influencing them on the few-body level is an important prerequisite for later studies of strongly correlated many-body systems. As these understandings will provide tuning parameters, e.g. the dimensionality of the trap and external magnetic or light fields, needed to prepare the gas in such states. The main goal of the project is the exploration and explanation of short and long-range scattering properties and relaxation processes through spin-orbit coupling of the different Dy isotopes. In contrast to weaker dipolar gases, the related cross sections are large enough to support cooling to quantum degeneracy without sympathetic cooling even with fermions.  Feshbach resonances of the different isotopes are also of central interest. They will be used to tune the inter- and intra-isotope scattering lengths e.g. for sympathetic cooling and to enhance the relative strength of the dipole-dipole interaction. We will explore their usability for molecule formation with the aim of generating samples with even stronger dipole moment and better ratio between mass, magnetic moment and contact interaction strength. Further investigations will be on demagnetization cooling that can be performed in principle without atom losses. There is even the potential to use only this cooling method until degeneracy for Dysprosium atoms.