Demonstrating Universal Scaling in Quench Dynamics of a Yukawa One-Component Plasma

Abstract

The Yukawa one-component plasma (OCP) is a paradigm model for describing plasmas that contain one component of interest and one or more other components that can be treated as a neutralizing, screening background. In appropriately scaled units, interactions are characterized entirely by a screening parameter, $\kappa$. As a result, systems of similar $\kappa$ show the same dynamics, regardless of the underlying parameters (e.g., density and temperature). We demonstrate this behavior using ultracold neutral plasmas (UNP) created by photoionizing a cold ($T\le 10$ mK) gas. The ions in UNP systems are well described by the Yukawa model, with the electrons providing the screening. Creation of the plasma through photoionization can be thought of as a rapid quench from ${\kappa }_0=\infty$ to a final $\kappa$ value set by the electron density and temperature. We demonstrate experimentally that the post-quench dynamics are universal in $\kappa$ over a factor of 30 in density and an order of magnitude in temperature. Results are compared with molecular dynamics simulations. We also demonstrate that features of the post-quench kinetic energy evolution, such as disorder-induced heating and kinetic-energy oscillations, can be used to determine the plasma density and the electron temperature.

10 pages, 12 figures, to be submitted to Physical Review E

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Experimental measurement of non-Markovian dynamics and self-diffusion in a strongly coupled plasma
• Ion friction at small values of the Coulomb logarithm
• Combined molecular dynamics and quantum trajectories simulation of laser-driven, collisional systems
• Nonlinear Mixing of Waves in a Yukawa One Component Plasma