Bose-Einstein condensation of erbium atoms in a quasielectrostatic optical dipole trap

Quantum gases of rare-earth elements are of interest due to the large magnetic moment of many of those elements, leading to strong dipole-dipole interactions, as well as an often nonvanishing orbital angular momentum in the electronic ground state, with prospects for long coherence time Raman manipulation, and state-dependent lattice potentials. We report on the realization of a Bose-Einstein condensate of erbium atoms in a quasielectrostatic optical dipole trap generated by a tightly focused midinfrared optical beam derived from a CO2 laser near 10.6 mu m in wavelength. The quasistatic dipole trap is loaded from a magneto-optic trap operating on a narrow-line erbium laser cooling transition near 583 nm in wavelength. Evaporative cooling within the dipole trap takes place in the presence of a magnetic field gradient to enhance the evaporative speed, and we produce spin-polarized erbium Bose-Einstein condensates with 3 x 10(4) atoms.