Studies of Ultracold Neutral Plasma

这项研究将探索超冷等离子体的性质。该项目的研究人员开发了一种技术，从激光冷却原子开始产生温度低至几千克的超冷等离子体。这项工作将继续研究超冷等离子体在扩展到真空中时的性质。研究人员将研究如何激发和探测等离子体的集体激发，以深入了解超冷等离子体及其动力学背后的物理基础。他们将探索导致发射电子爆发的非线性不稳定性。他们将采用等离子体物理学的方法来对等离子体进行磁性限制，这将允许更长的时间进行研究，并改变与膨胀过程相关的动力学。研究人员已经证明，这样的等离子体可以部分重组成高激发的里德堡原子，并在这项工作中提出开发技术，以不破坏等离子体的方式测量里德堡原子。这将允许洞察复合过程以及修改系统的动力学。这项研究是探索性的，调查以前没有被探索或理论上处理的物理系统的状态，位于原子物理和等离子体物理之间。在几个不同的科学和技术领域都有潜在的应用。研究生和本科生将接受最先进的光学技术培训，并获得高真空、模拟、射频和数字电子以及基于计算机的数据采集方面的经验。他们所处的环境会让他们暴露在各种各样的物理环境中。

The research will explore the properties of ultra-cold plasmas. The researchers of this project developed a technique that starts with laser-cooled atoms to produce ultracold plasmas, with temperatures as low as a few K. This work will continue to study the properties of ultracold plasmas as they expand into vacuum. The researchers will investigate how to excite and probe collective excitations of the plasma, to gain insight into the physics underlying the ultra-cold plasma and its dynamics. They will explore nonlinear instabilities that lead to bursts of emitted electrons. They will adapt methods from plasma physics to magnetically confine the plasma, which will allow longer periods of time for investigations, as well as change the dynamics related to the expansion process. The researchers have shown that such a plasma can in part recombine into highly excited Rydberg atoms and propose in this work develop techniques to measure the Rydberg atoms in a way that does not destroy the plasma. This will allow insight into the recombination process as well as modifying the dynamics of the system.This research is exploratory, investigating regimes of physical system that have not previously been explored, or theoretically treated, residing at the boundary between atomic physics and plasma physics. There are potential applications in several different scientific and technical areas. Graduate and undergraduate students will be trained in state-of-the-art optical techniques, along with gaining experience with high vacuum, analog, RF, and digital electronics, and computer-based data acquisition. They will be in an environment that exposes them to a wide variety of physics.