Strongly interacting ultracold quantum gases of fermionic ytterbium-173

In contrast to the more common alkali atoms, alkaline-earth-like ytterbium features a strong decoupling between the nuclear and the electronic spin degree of freedom and possesses a metastable excited state. The decoupling gives rise to an extended SU($N$)-symmetry with $N\leq6$ for ytterbium-173. This enables us to study the SU($N$)-symmetric Fermi-Hubbard model in a three-dimensional optical lattice. We prepare a low-temperature SU($N$)-symmetric Mott insulator and characterize the Mott crossover. High local resolution allows us to extract the equation of state for a large range of interactions. In a second experiment, we investigate the scattering properties between the $^1$S$_0$ ground state and $^3$P$_0$ metastable state, where the interactions cannot be tuned with standard magnetic Feshbach resonances as in alkalis. We report on the discovery of a new orbital interaction-induced Feshbach resonance in ytterbium-173, permitting tunable interactions between these two states.