Ultracold Plasmas and Guiding Center Drift Atoms

Jaehoon Choi

Cold Rydberg atoms and ultracold plasmas have been studied in the strong-magnetization regime. In this new territory, novel atomic and plasma states---such as guiding-center drift Rydberg attains and strongly magnetized, quasi-neutral, ultracold plasmas---have been created and investigated. The evolution dynamics studies of these exotic diamagnetic forms of matter, made possible by implementing a superconducting magnetic atom trap, revealed rich dynamical features in the systems: The Landau-quantized energy structure has led to entirely different evolutions of the highly excited atoms in laser-excited or drift Rydberg states than in magnetic-field-free cases; and the presence of the strong magnetic field has drastically altered the collisional behavior and expansion dynamics of the plasmas. Furthermore, atom cooling and trapping methodology has been extended in multiple directions. Firstly, laser cooling and magnetic trapping of ground-state atoms has been demonstrated in magnetic; fields exceeding 3 Tesla, representing a 20-fold increase in the field-strength of cold-atom traps. Secondly, the trapping of Rydberg atoms with a lifetime of 80 ms has been achieved. This trapping technique exploits the quasi-free nature of Rydberg electrons, which can be adopted in other forms of Rydberg-atom trapping. Lastly; the trapping of two-component, ultracold plasmas has been demonstrated in a nested Penning-trap configuration. The confinement of quasi-neutral ultracold plasmas allowed us to observe novel effects such as the correlation between the ionic oscillation and the electron energy distribution.

T. C. Killian, Thomas Pattard, Thomas Pohl +1 more

S. L. Rolston, Jacob Roberts

Eric M. Bass, Daniel H. E. Dubin

Abstract. Atoms formed in highly-magnetized, cryogenic Penning trap plasmas, such as those used in the Athena and ATRAP antihydrogen experiments, form in the guiding-center atom regime. In this regime, the positron orbit is well described by classical guiding-center drift dynamics. Electromagnetic radiation from such atoms is minimal, and energy loss is accomplished primarily through collisions between the atom and free positrons. With Fokker-Planck theory and Monte-Carlo simulation, we calculate the mean energy change an ensemble of such atoms experiences after the atom has been formed. Using this result, we show that the bulk of atoms formed in antihydrogen experiments do not relax out of the guiding-center regime to binding energies where radiation can become important.

Zafar Yasin, James L. Hart, Ross L. Spencer +1 more

S. G. Kuzmin, Thomas M. O’Neil

The ApparaTus for High precision Experiment on Neutral Antimatter and antihydrogen TRAP collaborations have produced antihydrogen atoms by recombination in a cryogenic antiproton-positron plasma. This paper discusses the motion of the weakly bound atoms in the electric and magnetic field of the plasma and trap. The effective electric field in the moving frame of the atom polarizes the atom, and then gradients in the field exert a force on the atom. An approximate equation of motion for the atom center of mass is obtained by averaging over the rapid internal dynamics of the atom. The only remnant of the atom internal dynamics that enters this equation is the polarizability for the atom. This coefficient is evaluated for the weakly bound and strongly magnetized (guiding center drift) atoms understood to be produced in the antihydrogen experiments. Application of the approximate equation of motion shows that the atoms can be trapped radially in the large space charge field near the edge of the positron column. Also, an example is presented for which there is full three-dimensional trapping, not just radial trapping. Even untrapped atoms follow curved trajectories, and such trajectories are discussed for the important class of atoms that reach a field ionization diagnostic. Finally, the critical field for ionization is determined as an upper bound on the range of applicability of the theory.