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Lanthanides have a special place in field of quantum simulations with cold atom due to their unique properties, such as large orbital momentum and large magnetic momentum in the ground state. Large orbital momentum in ground state leads to easily tunable interactions between cold atoms via low-field Fano-Feshbach resonances, while large magnetic moment leads to relatively strong dipole-dipole interactions.

In particular, thulium atom is specifically interested since it has single hole in its f-shell. This single hole in on one side provide enough orbital momentum in ground state for thulium to have many Fano-Feshbach Resonances at low magnetic field and have magnetic moment of 4 Bohr magnetons in the ground state. On another side having just one hole in the f-shell thulium possess much simpler level structure then other lanthanides. Thus, simple level structure and high degree of control of interatomic interaction together with strong dipole-dipole interactions make thulium atom favorable candidate for quantum simulations.

To perform quantum simulation one need first to create suitable initial state. In case of thulium atom, it means cooling thulium atom down to Bose-Einstein condensation temperature. In this talk I will speak on our efforts towards deep cooling of thulium atom, including study of its low-field Fano-Feshbach resonances, background scattering length and implementation of machine-learning for optimization of evaporative cooling and reaching quntum degeneracy regime.