Dipolar evaporation of reactive molecules to below the Fermi temperature.

The control of molecules is key to the investigation of quantum phases, in which rich degrees of freedom can be used to encode information and strong interactions can be precisely tuned1. Inelastic losses in molecular collisions2-5, however, have greatly hampered the engineering of low-entropy molecular systems6. So far, the only quantum degenerate gas of molecules has been created via association of two highly degenerate atomic gases7,8. Here we use an external electric field along with optical lattice confinement to create a two-dimensional Fermi gas of spin-polarized potassium-rubidium (KRb) polar molecules, in which elastic, tunable dipolar interactions dominate over all inelastic processes. Direct thermalization among the molecules in the trap leads to efficient dipolar evaporative cooling, yielding a rapid increase in phase-space density. At the onset of quantum degeneracy, we observe the effects of Fermi statistics on the thermodynamics of the molecular gas. These results demonstrate a general strategy for achieving quantum degeneracy in dipolar molecular gases in which strong, long-range and anisotropic dipolar interactions can drive the emergence of exotic many-body phases, such as interlayer pairing and p-wave superfluidity.

Dynamical Generation of Spin Squeezing in Ultracold Dipolar Molecules.

We study a bulk fermionic dipolar molecular gas in the quantum degenerate regime confined in a two-dimensional geometry. Using two rotational states of the molecules, we encode a spin 1/2 degree of freedom. To describe the many-body spin dynamics of the molecules, we derive a long-range interacting XXZ model valid in the regime where motional degrees of freedom are frozen. Because of the spatially extended nature of the harmonic oscillator modes, the interactions in the spin model are very long ranged, and the system behaves close to the collective limit, resulting in robust dynamics and generation of entanglement in the form of spin squeezing even at finite temperature and in the presence of dephasing and chemical reactions. We discuss how the internal state structure can be exploited to realize time reversal and enhanced metrological sensing protocols.

Thermalization and Sub-Poissonian Density Fluctuations in a Degenerate Molecular Fermi Gas.

We observe thermalization in the production of a degenerate Fermi gas of polar ^{40}K^{87}Rb molecules. By measuring the atom-dimer elastic scattering cross section near the Feshbach resonance, we show that Feshbach molecules rapidly reach thermal equilibrium with both parent atomic species. Equilibrium is essentially maintained through coherent transfer to the ground state. Sub-Poissonian density fluctuations in Feshbach and ground-state molecules are measured, giving an independent characterization of degeneracy and directly probing the molecular Fermi-Dirac distribution.

Resonant collisional shielding of reactive molecules using electric fields.

Full control of molecular interactions, including reactive losses, would open new frontiers in quantum science. We demonstrate extreme tunability of ultracold chemical reaction rates by inducing resonant dipolar interactions by means of an external electric field. We prepared fermionic potassium-rubidium molecules in their first excited rotational state and observed a modulation of the chemical reaction rate by three orders of magnitude as we tuned the electric field strength by a few percent across resonance. In a quasi-two-dimensional geometry, we accurately determined the contributions from the three dominant angular momentum projections of the collisions. Using the resonant features, we shielded the molecules from loss and suppressed the reaction rate by an order of magnitude below the background value, thereby realizing a long-lived sample of polar molecules in large electric fields.

A degenerate Fermi gas of polar molecules.

Experimental realization of a quantum degenerate gas of molecules would provide access to a wide range of phenomena in molecular and quantum sciences. However, the very complexity that makes ultracold molecules so enticing has made reaching degeneracy an outstanding experimental challenge over the past decade. We now report the production of a degenerate Fermi gas of ultracold polar molecules of potassium-rubidium. Through coherent adiabatic association in a deeply degenerate mixture of a rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate and a potassium Fermi gas, we produce molecules at temperatures below 0.3 times the Fermi temperature. We explore the properties of this reactive gas and demonstrate how degeneracy suppresses chemical reactions, making a long-lived degenerate gas of polar molecules a reality.

Josephson effect in fermionic superfluids across the BEC-BCS crossover.

The Josephson effect is a macroscopic quantum phenomenon that reveals the broken symmetry associated with any superfluid state. Here we report on the observation of the Josephson effect between two fermionic superfluids coupled through a thin tunneling barrier. We show that the relative population and phase are canonically conjugate dynamical variables throughout the crossover from the molecular Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) to the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid regime. For larger initial excitations from equilibrium, the dynamics of the superfluids become dissipative, which we ascribe to the propagation of vortices through the superfluid bulk. Our results highlight the robust nature of resonant superfluids.