SYMPATHETIC COOLING OF AN ATOMIC BOSE-FERMI GAS MIXTURE

Sympathetic cooling of an atomic Fermi gas by a Bose gas is studied by solution of the coupled quantum Boltzmann equations for the confined gas mixture. Results for equilibrium temperatures and relaxation dynamics are presented, and some simple models are developed. Our study illustrates that a combination of sympathetic and forced evaporative cooling enables the Fermi gas to be cooled to the degenerate regime where quantum statistics and mean-field effects are important. The influence of mean-field effects on the equilibrium spatial distributions is discussed qualitatively.