Sympathetic cooling of bosonic and fermionic Lithium gases towards quantum degeneracy

Sympathetic cooling of two atomic isotopes is experimentally investigated. Using forced evaporation of a bosonic 7Li gas in a magnetic trap, a sample of 3 10^5 6Li fermions has been sympathetically cooled to 9(3)muK, corresponding to 2.2(0.8) times the Fermi temperature. The measured rate constant for 2-body inelastic collisions of 7Li |2,2> state at low magnetic field is 1.0^{+0.8}_{-0.5} 10^-14 cm^3s^-1.