A new apparatus for quantum simulation with ultracold dipolar erbium atoms

Recently Lanthanide atoms such as dysprosium and erbium have attracted significant attention in quantum simulation with ultracold atoms due to their large magnetic moment and meta-stable excited states. Here, we present our on-going efforts for developing a versatile erbium apparatus in which various exotic states of matter, such as quantum droplets, can be emulated. Slow erbium atoms generated by a spin-flip Zeeman slower are trapped by a magneto-optical trap (MOT). We implement a bi-chromatic MOT, consisting of singlet ($4f^{12}6s^2$ $^3H_6\to$ $4f^{12} (^3H_6)6s6p(^1P_1)$) and triplet ($4f^{12}6s^2$ $^3H_6\to$ $4f^{12} (^3H_6)6s6p(^3P_1)$) transitions, which increases the repetition rate of experiment. We will discuss experimental details that produce a degenerate quantum gas of erbium atoms in the apparatus.