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 Li-7 gas in a magnetic trap, a sample of 1.3x10(5) Li-6 fermions has been sympathetically cooled to 9(3) muK, corresponding to 2.2(0.8) times the Fermi temperature. The measured rate constant for two-body inelastic collisions of the Li-7 \2,2] state at low magnetic field is 1.0(-0.5)(+0.8) x 10(-14) cm(3) s(-1).