Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 170404 (2005) [4 pages]Damping of a Unitary Fermi GasReceived 21 February 2005; published 6 May 2005 We measure the temperature dependence of the radial breathing mode in an optically trapped, unitary Fermi gas of 6Li, just above the center of a broad Feshbach resonance. The damping rate reveals a clear change in behavior which we interpret as arising from a superfluid transition. We suggest pair breaking as a mechanism for an increase in the damping rate which occurs at temperatures well above the transition. In contrast to the damping, the frequency varies smoothly and remains close to the unitary hydrodynamic value. At low temperature T, the damping depends on the atom number only through the reduced temperature, and extrapolates to 0 at T=0. © 2005 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.170404
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.170404
PACS:
03.75.Ss, 32.80.Pj
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