Electron Distribution and Electrostatic Oscillations of an Ultracold Plasma
| dc.contributor.advisor | Rolston, Steven L | en_US |
| dc.contributor.author | Twedt, Kevin A. | en_US |
| dc.contributor.department | Physics | en_US |
| dc.contributor.publisher | Digital Repository at the University of Maryland | en_US |
| dc.contributor.publisher | University of Maryland (College Park, Md.) | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2012-07-06T11:23:36Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2012-07-06T11:23:36Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2012 | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Ultracold neutral plasmas (UCPs) are transient laboratory plasmas with many unique properties owing to their creation from the near-threshold photoionization of laser-cooled neutral atoms in an ultra-high vacuum environment. UCPs have equilibrium electron and ion temperatures as low as 1 K, orders of magnitude colder than other neutral plasmas. They are untrapped and expand into vacuum with an inhomogeneous density and changing neutrality. The plasmas are also created in a non-equilibrium state and the establishment of equilibrium results in a neutral plasma on the border of strong coupling. All of these features have made UCPs ideal systems for the study of basic plasma phenomena. This thesis focuses on the long-time expansion of UCPs created from laser-cooled xenon atoms. We investigate the importance of external electric fields and the changing plasma neutrality which have been largely ignored in previous work. We present a detailed analysis of the electron distribution and the rate of electron loss during expansion. We show the effect of electron loss on plasma oscillations, and have developed a new technique to directly observe electrostatic plasma oscillations by measuring the induced current on a nearby electrode. We also expand on previous measurements of plasma expansion in a uniform magnetic field and consider the prospects for magnetic trapping. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1903/12551 | |
| dc.subject.pqcontrolled | Atomic physics | en_US |
| dc.subject.pqcontrolled | Plasma physics | en_US |
| dc.title | Electron Distribution and Electrostatic Oscillations of an Ultracold Plasma | en_US |
| dc.type | Dissertation | en_US |
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