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Published Online July 22, 2004
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1100818

Reports

Submitted on May 27, 2004
Accepted on July 13, 2004

Observation of the Pairing Gap in a Strongly Interacting Fermi Gas

C. Chin 1, M. Bartenstein 1, A. Altmeyer 1, S. Riedl 1, S. Jochim 1, J. Hecker Denschlag 1, R. Grimm 2*

1 Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
2 Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria; Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
R. Grimm , E-mail: rudolf.grimm{at}uibk.ac.at

We study fermionic pairing in an ultracold two-component gas of 6Li atoms by observing an energy gap in the radio-frequency excitation spectra. With control of the two-body interactions via a Feshbach resonance we demonstrate the dependence of the pairing gap on coupling strength, temperature, and Fermi energy. The appearance of an energy gap with moderate evaporative cooling suggests that our full evaporation brings the strongly interacting system deep into a superfluid state.


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)