A long-lived spin-orbit-coupled dipolar Fermi gas

We report on the demonstration of spin-orbit coupling in a quantum degenerate dipolar Fermi gas of dysprosium. The $T/T_F = 0.4$ gas has a lifetime as large as 0.4 s under Raman dressing at densities exceeding $10^{13}$ cm$^{-3}$. The lifetime is limited not by spontaneous emission but by dipolar relaxation loss, and the effect of the dipolar interaction is also observed in the dephasing of Rabi oscillations. This spin-orbit-coupled dipolar gas will allow future studies of fermionic systems in the presence of synthetic gauge fields wherein long lifetimes are essential to observing collective effects.