English

Power-Law Distributions for a Trapped Ion Interacting with a Classical Buffer Gas

Atomic Physics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

Classical collisions with an ideal gas generate non-Maxwellian distribution functions for a single ion in a radio frequency ion trap. The distributions have power-law tails whose exponent depends on the ratio of buffer gas to ion mass. This provides a statistical explanation for the previously observed transition from cooling to heating. Monte Carlo results approximate a Tsallis distribution over a wide range of parameters and have ab initio agreement with experiment.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0903.0637,
  title  = {Power-Law Distributions for a Trapped Ion Interacting with a Classical Buffer Gas},
  author = {Ralph G. Devoe},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.0637},
  year   = {2009}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:18:01.846Z