Feshbach and Photoassociation Resonances in an Ultracold Lithium-Ytterbium Mixture

Magnetic Feshbach resonances have allowed great success in the production of ultracold diatomic molecules from bi-alkali mixtures, but have so far eluded observation in mixtures of alkali and alkaline-earth-like atoms. Inelastic collisional properties of ultracold atomic systems exhibit resonant behavior in the vicinity of such resonances, providing a detection signature. We study magnetic field dependent inelastic effects via atom loss spectroscopy in an ultracold heteronuclear mixture of alkali $^6$Li in the ground state and alkaline-earth-like $^{174}$Yb in an excited electronic metastable state ($^3P_2$, $m_J = ?1$). We observe a variation of the interspecies inelastic two-body rate coefficient by nearly one order of magnitude over a 100 ? 520 G magnetic field range. By comparing to ab-initio calculations we link our observations to interspecies Feshbach resonances arising from anisotropic interactions in this novel collisional system. Furthermore, we present photoassocation (PA) spectroscopy of $^6$Li and multiple isotopes of Yb using the Li D line (671 nm), working towards all optical coherent production of ground state LiYb molecules in a 3 dimensional optical lattice.