We have investigated both theoretically and experimentally dipolar relaxation in a gas of magnetically trapped chromium atoms. We have found that the large magnetic moment of 6 $mu_B$ results in an event rate coefficient for dipolar relaxation processes of up to $3.2cdot10^{-11}$ cm$^{3}$s$^{-1}$ at a magnetic field of 44 G. We present a theoretical model based on pure dipolar coupling, which predicts dipolar relaxation rates in agreement with our experimental observations. This very general approach can be applied to a large variety of dipolar gases.
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