Using Three-Body Recombination to Extract Electron Temperatures of Ultracold Plasmas

Journal Article · Fri Oct 05 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.99.145001· OSTI ID:21024237

Fletcher, R S; Zhang, X L; Rolston, S L ^[1]

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1. Joint Quantum Institute, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 (United States)

Three-body recombination, an important collisional process in plasmas, increases dramatically at low electron temperatures, with an accepted scaling of T{sub e}{sup -9/2}. We measure three-body recombination in an ultracold neutral xenon plasma by detecting recombination-created Rydberg atoms using a microwave-ionization technique. With the accepted theory (expected to be applicable for weakly coupled plasmas) and our measured rates, we extract the plasma temperatures, which are in reasonable agreement with previous measurements early in the plasma lifetime. The resulting electron temperatures indicate that the plasma continues to cool to temperatures below 1 K.

• OSTI ID: 21024237
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 99, Issue 14; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.145001; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ELECTRON TEMPERATURE
ION TEMPERATURE
IONIZATION
MICROWAVE RADIATION
PLASMA
RECOMBINATION
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0000-0013 K
THREE-BODY PROBLEM
XENON