Magnetic trapping of the rare earths at milliKelvin temperatures: Pr, Nd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, and Tm

We report magnetic trapping of non-S-state rare-earth atoms (Pr, Nd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, and Tm). We observe a suppression of the interaction anisotropy in collisions of rare-earth atoms with atomic helium. The rare-earth atoms behave effectively like S- state atoms because their unpaired electrons are shielded by two outer filled electronic shells that are spherically symmetric. For each rare-earth species, $(0.2-2)\times 10^{12}$ atoms are trapped at densities of $(0.2-8) \times 10^{12}$~cm$^{-3}$ and temperatures of $\sim800$~mK. Our results suggest that the creation of quantum degenerate gases with non-S-state atoms in a magnetic trap is possible.