Conversion of an Atomic Fermi Gas to a Long-Lived Molecular Bose Gas

Abstract

We have converted an ultracold Fermi gas of 6Li atoms into an ultracold gas of 6Li2 molecules by adiabatic passage through a Feshbach resonance. Approximately 1.5 x 10(5) molecules in the least-bound, v=38, vibrational level of the X1Sigma(+)(g) singlet state are produced with an efficiency of 50%. The molecules remain confined in an optical trap for times of up to 1 s before we dissociate them by a reverse adiabatic sweep.