Using Absorption Imaging to Study Ion Dynamics in an Ultracold Neutral Plasma

Abstract

We report optical absorption imaging of ultracold neutral plasmas.Images are used to measure the ion absorption spectrum, which is Doppler-broadened. Through the spectral width, we monitor ion equilibration in the first 250ns after plasma formation. The equilibration leaves ions on the border between the weakly coupled gaseous and strongly coupled liquid states. On a longer timescale of microseconds, we observe radial acceleration of ions resulting from pressure exerted by the trapped electron gas.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Creation of an Ultracold Neutral Plasma
• Plasma Oscillations and Expansion of an Ultracold Neutral Plasma
• Evolution of Ultracold, Neutral Plasmas
• Magnetic trapping of metastable ${}^3{P}_2$ atomic strontium

Cited by in corpus (56)

• Ultracold Neutral Plasmas
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• Spontaneous avalanche ionization of a strongly blockaded Rydberg gas
• Imaging the evolution of an ultracold strontium Rydberg gas
• Using Three-Body Recombination to Extract Electron Temperatures of Ultracold Plasmas
• Experimental Realization of an Exact Solution to the Vlasov Equations for an Expanding Plasma
• Electron Temperature Evolution in Expanding Ultracold Neutral Plasmas
• Self-sustained oscillations in a Large Magneto-Optical Trap
• Spectroscopy of strontium Rydberg states using electromagnetically induced transparency
• Relaxation to non-equilibrium in expanding ultracold neutral plasmas
• Velocity Relaxation in a Strongly Coupled Plasma
• Two-electron excitation of an interacting cold Rydberg gas
• Number-resolved imaging of excited-state atoms using a scanning autoionization microscope
• Cold and Ultracold Rydberg Atoms in Strong Magnetic Fields
• Strongly Coupled Plasmas via Rydberg-Blockade of Cold Atoms
• Ultracold Plasma Expansion in a Magnetic Field
• The limit of strong ion coupling due to electron shielding
• Rydberg atom formation in strongly correlated ultracold plasmas
• Long-Lived Circular Rydberg Qubits of Alkaline-Earth Atoms in Optical Tweezers
• Electronic detection of collective modes of an ultracold plasma
• Spectroscopy of a cold strontium Rydberg gas
• High Density Mesoscopic Atom Clouds in a Holographic Atom Trap
• Ion Temperature Evolution in an Ultracold Neutral Plasma
• Recombination fluorescence in ultracold neutral plasmas
• The very slow expansion of an ultracold plasma formed in a seeded supersonic molecular beam of NO
• Modulation-free pump-probe spectroscopy of strontium atoms
• Ultracold neutral plasma expansion in two dimensions
• Absorption Imaging and Spectroscopy of Ultracold Neutral Plasmas
• Star clusters dynamics in a laboratory: electrons in an ultracold plasma
• A vapor cell based on dispensers for laser spectroscopy
• Demonstrating Universal Scaling in Quench Dynamics of a Yukawa One-Component Plasma
• Influence of electron-ion collisions on Coulomb crystallization of ultracold neutral plasmas
• Optimized fringe removal algorithm for absorption images
• Density-Dependent Response of an Ultracold Plasma to Few-Cycle Radio-Frequency Pulses
• High Resolution Ionization of Ultracold Neutral Plasmas
• Ion friction at small values of the Coulomb logarithm
• Influence of Electron Evaporative Cooling on Ultracold Plasma Expansion
• Heating and cooling of electrons in an ultracold neutral plasma using Rydberg atoms
• Electron Evaporation from an Ultracold Plasma in a Uniform Electric Field
• Spiral waves in driven strongly coupled Yukawa systems
• Measurement and simulation of laser-induced fluorescence from non-equilibrium ultracold neutral plasmas
• Coulomb anti-blockade in a Rydberg dressed gas
• On the Specific Features of Temperature Evolution in Ultracold Plasmas
• Parallel TREE code for two-component ultracold plasma analysis
• Expansion of Ultracold Neutral Plasmas with Exponentially Decaying Density Distributions
• Heating mechanisms in radio frequency driven ultracold plasmas
• Emergence of Kinetic Behavior in Streaming Ultracold Neutral Plasmas
• The role of collisions and strong coupling in ultracold plasmas
• Microwave Diagnostics of Ultracold Neutral Plasma
• Hyperfine structure and isotope shifts of the ${}^1{P}_1\leftarrow {}^1{S}_0$ transition in atomic zinc
• Ultracold Neutral Plasmas
• Electron trapping in freely expanding ultracold neutral plasmas
• Strong-coupling effects in the relaxation dynamics of ultracold neutral plasmas
• Combined molecular dynamics and quantum trajectories simulation of laser-driven, collisional systems
• Propagation of radiation pulses through gas-plasma mixtures
• Magnetic Confinement of an Ultracold Neutral Plasma