Laser Cooling and Trapping an Ultracold Neutral Plasma

激光冷却和捕获超冷中性等离子体

• 批准号: 0355069
• 负责人: Thomas Killian
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-04-15 至 2008-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0355069&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Laser; Cooling; Trapping; Ultracold; Neutral

This research project focuses on the application of the power of laser cooling and trapping techniques to a new system - ultracold neutral plasmas. This represents a completely new mode of neutral plasma confinement, and it will enable fundamental experiments on strong coupling, recombination, and cold electron-ion collisions and thermalization. Ultracold neutral plasmas are produced by photoionizing laser cooled atoms just above the ionization threshold. A significant fraction of the proposed research will thus involve characterizing the dynamics of the charged particles. Absorption imaging, a diagnostic recently demonstrated with ultracold plasmas, will make this possible. The broader impact involves education of both graduate and undergraduate students, commitments to diversity and coupling of AMO physics with plasma physics.

本研究项目的重点是将激光冷却和俘获技术应用于一种新的系统-超冷中性等离子体。这代表了一种全新的中性等离子体约束模式，它将使强耦合、复合、冷电子-离子碰撞和热化的基础实验成为可能。超冷中性等离子体是由光电离激光冷却原子刚好超过电离阈值产生的。因此，拟议研究的很大一部分将涉及表征带电粒子的动力学。吸收成像，一种最近用超冷等离子体进行的诊断，将使这成为可能。更广泛的影响包括研究生和本科生的教育，对多样性的承诺以及AMO物理与等离子体物理的耦合。