Localized magnetic moments with tunable spin exchange in a gas of ultracold fermions

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We report on the experimental realization of a state-dependent lattice for a two-orbital fermionic quantum gas with strong interorbital spin exchange.

• In our state-dependent lattice, the ground and metastable excited electronic states of $^{173}$Yb take the roles of itinerant and localized magnetic moments, respectively.
• Repulsive on-site interactions in conjunction with the tunnel mobility lead to spin exchange between mobile and localized particles, modeling the coupling term in the well-known Kondo Hamiltonian.
• In addition, we find that this exchange process can be tuned resonantly by varying the on-site confinement.