Related papers: Effects of Disorder on Electron Heating in Ultraco…
Ultracold plasmas are a promising candidate for the creation of strongly-coupled Coulomb systems. Unfortunately, the values of the coupling parameter Gamma_e actually achieved after photoionization of the neutral atoms remain relatively…
We have experimentally demonstrated both heating and cooling of electrons in an ultracold neutral plasma (UNP) by embedding Rydberg atoms into the plasma soon after its creation. We have determined the relationship between the initial…
Ultracold neutral plasmas provide a useful system for studying extreme parameter regimes plasma physics in an accessible laboratory setting. The parameter space of plasma physics can be characterized in part by coupling strength and degree…
Recent work has shown that ions are strongly coupled in atmospheric pressure plasmas when the ionization fraction is sufficiently large, leading to a temperature increase from disorder-induced heating that is not accounted for in standard…
While generating ultracold plasma (UCP) by photoinization of laser-cooled atoms, only a small fraction of atoms are ionized, and the remaining neutrals interact with the electrons present therein. These interactions, in addition to the…
We have studied the behavior of cold Rydberg atoms embedded in an ultracold plasma. We demonstrate that even deeply bound Rydberg atoms are completely ionized in such an environment, due to electron collisions. Using a fast pulse extraction…
We report the sudden and spontaneous evolution of an initially correlated gas of repulsively interacting Rydberg atoms to an ultracold plasma. Under continuous laser coupling we create a Rydberg ensemble in the strong blockade regime, which…
While ion heating by elastic electron-ion collisions may be neglected for a description of the evolution of freely expanding ultracold neutral plasmas, the situation is different in scenarios where the ions are laser-cooled during the…
Plasma dynamics critically depends on density and temperature, thus well-controlled experimental realizations are essential benchmarks for theoretical models. The formation of an ultracold plasma can be triggered by ionizing a tunable…
We propose and analyze a new scheme to produce ultracold neutral plasmas deep in the strongly coupled regime. The method exploits the interaction blockade between cold atoms excited to high-lying Rydberg states and therefore does not…
We study the onset of electron heating in intense laser-solid interactions and its impact on the spectral quality of radiation pressure accelerated ions in both hole boring and light sail regimes. Two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell…
We have measured the asymptotic expansion velocities of ultra-cold plasmas (UNPs) which evolve from cold, dense, samples of Rydberg rubidium atoms using ion time-of-flight spectroscopy. From this, we have obtained values for the initial…
We have used the free expansion of ultracold neutral plasmas as a time-resolved probe of electron temperature. A combination of experimental measurements of the ion expansion velocity and numerical simulations characterize the crossover…
We consider temperature-induced melting of a Wigner solid in one dimensional (1D) and two dimensional (2D) lattices of electrons interacting via the long-range Coulomb interaction in the presence of strong disorder arising from charged…
When ultracold plasma is generated using photonization of laser cooled atoms, some atoms reach only upto Rydberg states. These in turn interact with the free electrons of the plasma and get ionized further. We study the interaction of…
If the electrons in a plasma are suddenly heated, the resulting change in Debye shielding causes the ion kinetic energy to quickly increase. For the first time, this correlation heating, which is much faster than collisional energy…
Electron heating in an ultracold neutral plasma is modeled using classical molecular dynamics simulations in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. A sufficiently strong magnetic field is found to reduce disorder induced…
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…
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,…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to model ion and neutral temperature evolution in partially-ionized atmospheric pressure plasma at different ionization fractions. Results show that ion-ion interactions are strongly coupled at…