Efimov Physics in a three-component Fermi gas

This thesis reports on experiments studying the few-body physics of three distin-guishable fermionic atoms with large scattering lengths. The experiments were performed with ultracold gases of fermionic 6Li atoms in three different hyper-fine states. By tuning the strength of the interactions between the atoms with Feshbach resonances and measuring the rate constants for inelastic three-atom and atom-dimer collisions the intersections of two universal trimer states with the three-atom and atom-dimer continuum could be located. Subsequently, one of these Efimov states was directly observed with RF-association spectroscopy. Us-ing this technique the binding energy of this Efimov state was measured as a func-tion of the strength of the interparticle interactions. The experiments presented in this thesis provide a nearly complete understanding of the universal few-body physics of three-component Fermi gases of 6Li atoms. This understanding will be the foundation for future studies of the many-body physics of three-component Fermi gases