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arXiv:physics/0402010 · Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

On the possibility of correlation cooling of ultracold neutral plasmas

Thomas Pohl, Thomas Pattard, Jan Michael Rost

Published Apr 21, 2004• 33 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Recent experiments with ultracold neutral plasmas show an intrinsic heating effect based on the development of spatial correlations. We investigate whether this effect can be reversed, so that imposing strong spatial correlations could in fact lead to cooling of the ions. We find that cooling is indeed possible. It requires, however, a very precise preparation of the initial state. Quantum mechanical zero-point motion sets a lower limit for ion cooling.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/37/9/l01

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Recent experiments with ultracold neutral plasmas show an intrinsic heating effect based on the development of spatial correlations. We investigate whether this effect can be reversed, so that imposing strong spatial correlations could in fact lead to cooling of the ions. We find that cooling is indeed possible. It requires, however, a very precise preparation of the initial state. Quantum mechanical zero-point motion sets a lower limit for ion cooling.
Abstract. Recent experiments with ultracold neutral plasmas show an intrinsic heating effect based on the development of spatial correlations, which has been termed “correlation heating”. We investigate whether this effect can be reversed, so that imposing strong spatial correlations could in fact lead to cooling. We find that cooling is indeed possible. It requires, however, a very precise preparation of the initial state. Quantum mechanical zero-point motion sets a lower limit for cooling. PACS numbers: 32.80.Pj,52.27.Gr Submitted to: J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. Letter to the Editor 2 Over the last two decades, techniques of cooling and trapping of ions and neutral atoms have made tremendous progress, making the regime of ultralow temperatures (T ≪ 1 K) accessible to experiment. Using sophisticated cooling schemes, temperatures far below 1µK have been realized, allowing, among many other applications, Bose-Einstein condensation of dilute atomic gases. Nevertheless, known cooling mechanisms either have a lower limit beyond which cooling is not possible (such as in “standard” laser cooling) or suffer from other drawbacks (such as loss of particles in evaporative
The progress toward laser cooling an ultracold plasma is presented in this thesis. Ultracold neutral plasmas are created by photo-ionizing laser cooled Strontium atoms. Initially this system is very strongly coupled, however the ions rapidly heat up leaving the plasma on the borderline of the strongly coupled regime. To counteract the effects of this heating an attempt to laser cool the ions in the system is undertaken. However, from these experiments we discovered that velocity changing collisions occurring in the system prevented laser cooling. In order to determine the collisions rate, a collision model was developed to simulate the spectra of the plasma from optical pumping experiments. These experiments and simulations in fact demonstrate that collisions are occurring at a fast enough rate to prevent ion cooling on the time scale of our experiment.
We study the long-time evolution of the ion temperature in an expanding ultracold neutral plasma using spatially resolved, laser-induced-fluorescence spectroscopy. Adiabatic cooling reduces the ion temperature by an order of magnitude during the plasma expansion, to temperatures as low as 0.2 K. Cooling is limited by heat exchange between ions and the much hotter electrons. We also present evidence for an additional heating mechanism and discuss possible sources. Data are described by a model of the plasma evolution, including the effects of ion-electron heat exchange. We show that for appropriate initial conditions, the degree of Coulomb coupling of ions in the plasma increases during expansion.