Using Absorption Imaging to Study Ion Dynamics in an Ultracold Neutral Plasma
Atomic Physics
2009-11-10 v1 Plasma Physics
Abstract
We report optical absorption imaging of ultracold neutral plasmas.Images are used to measure the ion absorption spectrum, which is Doppler-broadened. Through the spectral width, we monitor ion equilibration in the first 250ns after plasma formation. The equilibration leaves ions on the border between the weakly coupled gaseous and strongly coupled liquid states. On a longer timescale of microseconds, we observe radial acceleration of ions resulting from pressure exerted by the trapped electron gas.
Cite
@article{arxiv.physics/0310017,
title = {Using Absorption Imaging to Study Ion Dynamics in an Ultracold Neutral Plasma},
author = {C. E. Simien and Y. C. Chen and P. Gupta and S. Laha and Y. N. Martinez and P. G. Mickelson and S. B. Nagel and T. C. Killian},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0310017},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures