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arXiv:physics/0204084 · Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics

Neutral-plasma oscillations at zero temperature

Scott Bergeson, R. L. Spencer

Published Feb 26, 2003• 48 citations
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Abstract

Cold plasma theory is used to calculate the response of an ultracold neutral plasma to an applied rf field. The free oscillation of the system has a continuous spectrum and an associated damped quasimode. This quasimode dominates the driven response and is resonant in the tail of the density distribution. Recent experiments used the plasma response to an applied rf field to determine the plasma density in an expanding ultracold plasma. The comparison between experiment and theory indicates that this method accurately determines the expansion velocity and underestimates the initial plasma density by a factor of 3 in weakly collisional plasmas.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.67.026414

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Cold plasma theory is used to calculate the response of an ultracold neutral plasma to an applied rf field. The free oscillation of the system has a continuous spectrum and an associated damped quasimode. This quasimode dominates the driven response and is resonant in the tail of the density distribution. Recent experiments used the plasma response to an applied rf field to determine the plasma density in an expanding ultracold plasma. The comparison between experiment and theory indicates that this method accurately determines the expansion velocity and underestimates the initial plasma density by a factor of 3 in weakly collisional plasmas.
We report the observation of plasma oscillations in an ultracold neutral plasma. With this collective mode we probe the electron density distribution and study the expansion of the plasma as a function of time. For classical plasma conditions, i.e., weak Coulomb coupling, the expansion is dominated by the pressure of the electron gas and is described by a hydrodynamic model. Discrepancies between the model and observations at low temperature and high density may be due to strong coupling of the electrons.
By photoionizing samples of laser-cooled atoms with laser light tuned just above the ionization limit, plasmas can be created with electron and ion temperatures below 10 K. These ultracold neutral plasmas have extended the temperature bounds of plasma physics by two orders of magnitude. Table-top experiments, using many of the tools from atomic physics, allow for the study of plasma phenomena in this new regime with independent control over the density and temperature of the plasma through the excitation process. Characteristic of these systems is an inhomogeneous density profile, inherited from the density distribution of the laser-cooled neutral atom sample. Most work has dealt with unconfined plasmas in vacuum, which expand outward at velocities of order 100 m/s, governed by electron pressure, and with lifetimes of order 100 μs, limited by stray electric fields. Using detection of charged particles and optical detection techniques, a wide variety of properties and phenomena have been observed, including expansion dynamics, collective excitations in both the electrons and ions, and collisional properties. Through three-body recombination collisions, the plasmas rapidly form Rydberg atoms, and clouds of cold Rydberg atoms have been observed to spontaneously avalanche ionize to form plasmas. Of particular interest is the possibility of the formation of strongly coupled plasmas, where Coulomb forces dominate thermal motion and correlations become important. The strongest impediment to strong coupling is disorder-induced heating, a process in which Coulomb energy from an initially disordered sample is converted into thermal energy. This restricts electrons to a weakly coupled regime and leaves the ions barely within the strongly coupled regime. This review will give an overview of the field of ultracold neutral plasmas, from its inception in 1999 to current work, including efforts to increase strong coupling and effects on plasma properties due to strong coupling.
Electrons in an expanding ultracold plasma are expected to be in quasiequilibrium since the collision times are short compared to the plasma lifetime, yet electron evaporation is observed as the ion density decreases during expansion. A small electric field that shifts the electron cloud with respect to the ions increases the evaporation rate. Treating the electrons as a zero-temperature fluid, their spatial distribution is calculated as a function of the applied field strength and the ion density. The zero-temperature approximation gives the maximum number of electrons the plasma can hold in the absence of evaporation. By applying this calculation at all times during expansion, the flux of cold electrons from the plasma is predicted and found to be in good agreement with the observed electron signal.
Ultracold neutral plasmas exhibit a density-dependent resonant response to applied radio-frequency (rf) fields in the frequency range of several to hundreds of megahertz for achievable densities. We have conducted measurements where short bursts of an rf fieldwere applied to these plasmas, with pulse durations as short as two cycles. We still observed a density-dependent resonant response to these short pulses, but the time scale of the response is too short to be consistent with local heating of electrons in the plasma from collisions under a range of experimental parameters. Instead, our results are consistent with rapid energy transfer to individual electrons from electric fields resulting from an overall displacement of the electron cloud from the ions during the collective motion of the electrons. This collective motion was also observed by applying two sharp electric field pulses separated in time to the plasma. These measurements demonstrate the importance of collective motion in the energy transport in these systems.