Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules

Abstract

We report on the Bose-Einstein condensation of more than 10⁵ Li₂ molecules in an optical trap starting from a spin mixture of fermionic lithium atoms. During forced evaporative cooling, the molecules are formed by three-body recombination near a Feshbach resonance and finally condense in a long-lived thermal equilibrium state. We measured the characteristic frequency of a collective excitation mode and demonstrated the magnetic field–dependent mean field by controlled condensate spilling.