Interactions and Dynamics of Bosons Embedded in a Fermi Gas

Bosons immersed in a degenerate Fermi gas are predicted to interact at long range through excitations of the Fermi surface via the RKKY (Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida) mechanism. This interaction is expected to exhibit oscillations from attractive to repulsive akin to Friedel oscillation with a length scale set by the Fermi energy. We study fermion-mediated interactions based on quantum degenerate mixtures of bosonic $^{133}$Cs and fermionic $^6$Li, where the large mass-imbalance leads to a small Bose condensate immersed in a much larger degenerate Fermi gas. We employ high-resolution microscopy and a digital micro-mirror device to facilitate detection and control of the mixture at the one micron length scale. We will discuss schemes and progress towards direct observation of the long-ranged interactions mediated by the Fermi gas.