Is Bose-Einstein condensation of atomic cesium possible?

We investigate the dipole relaxation of a cesium atomic gas prepared in its lowest hyperfine level ( F = 3) and confined in a magnetic trap. We measure a rate ∼ 4 × 10 −13 , for a field of 0.1 mT and a temperature 1 μK. This value is 2 orders of magnitude larger than for lighter alkalis. It puts strong constraints on the trapping mechanism which could lead to the Bose-Einstein condensation of cesium.