Related papers: Arrested relaxation in an isolated molecular ultra…
The properties of a partially ionized plasma in a long cylindrical tube subject to a uniform axial electric field are investigated. The plasma is maintained by an external ionizing source balanced by bulk and surface recombinations.…
Clouds of ultracold strontium 5s48s 1S0 or 5s47d 1D2 Rydberg atoms are created by two photon excitation of laser cooled 5s2 1S0 atoms. The spontaneous evolution of the cloud of low orbital angular momentum (low-l) Rydberg states towards an…
We propose a new approach to excite ion-pair states of ultracold dimers. The central idea is a two-step process where first long-range Rydberg molecules are formed by photoassociation, which are then driven by stimulated emission towards…
We investigate the relaxation dynamics of a Rydberg gas in regimes where coherent processes and dissipation compete. In the strongly dissipative limit, the dynamics is known to be governed by an effective classical rate equation and to…
The ability to control and tune interactions in ultracold atomic gases has paved the way towards the realization of new phases of matter. Whereas experiments have so far achieved a high degree of control over short-ranged interactions, the…
Stability achieved by large angular momentum is ubiquitous in nature, with examples ranging from classical mechanics, over optics and chemistry, to nuclear physics. In atoms, angular momentum can protect excited electronic orbitals from…
We discuss laser dressed dipolar and Van der Waals interactions between atoms and polar molecules, so that a cold atomic gas with laser admixed Rydberg levels acts as a designed reservoir for both elastic and inelastic collisional…
Ultracold neutral plasmas are formed by photoionizing laser-cooled atoms near the ionization threshold. Through the application of atomic physics techniques and diagnostics, these experiments stretch the boundaries of traditional neutral…
We demonstrate that through localised Rydberg excitation in a three-dimensional cold atom cloud atomic motion can be rendered directed and nearly confined to a plane, without spatial constraints for the motion of individual atoms. This…
We report the first direct observation of the decay of the excited-state population in electrons trapped on the surface of liquid helium. The relaxation dynamics, which are governed by inelastic scattering processes in the system, are…
We demonstrate magnetic confinement of an ultracold neutral plasma (UCNP) created at the null of a biconic cusp, or quadrupole magnetic field. Initially, the UCNP expands due to electron thermal pressure. As the plasma encounters stronger…
In moderately-coupled plasmas, a significant fraction of the internal energy resides in electric fields. As these plasmas are heated or compressed, the shifting partition of energy between particles and fields leads to surprising effects,…
A high energy density plasma embedded in a neutral gas is able to launch an outward-propagating nonlinear electrostatic ionization wave that traps energetic electrons. The trapping maintains a strong sheath electric field, enabling rapid…
The collision of two expanding plasma clouds is investigated, emphasizing instabilities and electron energization in the plasma mixing layer. This work is directly relevant to laboratory experiments with explosively-created laser or z-pinch…
An ultra-cold molecular plasma with extraordinarily long lifetime (~0.5 ms) is generated under strong collisional cooling conditions in the expansion region of a seeded supersonic jet expansion close to the nozzle. A resonant two-photon…
It is well-known from numerical and experimental results that the fraction of Rydberg states (excited neutral atoms) created by tunnel ionization declines dramatically with increasing ellipticity of laser light. We present a method to…
We present the results of direct simulation of the expansionof a two-component ultracold plasmafor various numbers of particles, densities, and electron temperatures. A description of the expansionprocess common to all plasma parameters is…
The large electric dipole moments associated with highly excited Rydberg states of atoms and molecules make gas-phase samples in these states very well suited to deceleration and trapping using inhomogeneous electric fields. The methods of…
The expansion of a radial blast shell into an ambient plasma is modeled with a particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. The unmagnetized plasma consists of electrons and protons. The formation and evolution of an electrostatic shock is observed,…
The laser-excitation of Rydberg atoms in ultracold gases is often described assuming that the atomic motion is frozen during the excitation time. We show that this frozen gas approximation can break down for atoms that are held in optical…