The objective of this research project is to develop an ultrastable CO2 laser trap for Li-6 fermions. The proposed system offers many opportunities for exploring new physics in the cooling mechanisms and in the interparticle interactions, both in the nondegenerate and quantum degenerate regimes. Efforts within the program comprise broad studies of the trap dynamics including: 1) precooling and loading from a magneto-optical trap; 2) demonstration of very long trap lifetimes; 3) inelastic collisions; 4) optical cooling of the trapped atoms; 5) laser noise-induced heating; and 6) modeling of focused gaussian beam traps.
