Stability of a Three-Component $^{6}$Li$^{40}$K Fermi Mixture near a $^{6}$Li Feshbach Resonance

We report on the stability of a three-component Fermi gas consisting of a strongly interacting $^{6}$Li two-component degenerate mixture near the 834-G Feshbach resonance in the presence of a weakly interacting $^{40}$K sample. Despite the presence of three distinguishable particles, we observe stability against three-body recombination both on resonance and on the BCS side of the resonance. On the molecular side, however, we observe increasing losses due to atom-dimer collisions. We have measured the corresponding rate coefficients, along with Li-K thermalization rates, for different magnetic fields around the resonance. The observed stability and thermalization opens up the possibility of using $^{40}$K as a probe to study $^{6}$Li BEC-BCS crossover dynamics.