Strong-coupling effects in the relaxation dynamics of ultracold neutral plasmas

T Pohl, T Pattard
2005 Journal of Physics, Conference Series  
We describe a hybrid molecular dynamics approach for the description of ultracold neutral plasmas, based on an adiabatic treatment of the electron gas and a full molecular dynamics simulation of the ions, which allows us to follow the long-time evolution of the plasma including the effect of the strongly coupled ion motion. The plasma shows a rather complex relaxation behavior, connected with temporal as well as spatial oscillations of the ion temperature. Furthermore, additional laser cooling
more » ... f the ions during the plasma evolution drastically modifies the expansion dynamics, so that crystallization of the ion component can occur in this nonequilibrium system, leading to lattice-like structures or even long-range order resulting in concentric shells.
doi:10.1088/1742-6596/11/1/022 fatcat:5zpty36zhravhbdphuswywozaq