28 research outputs found
Plasma formation from ultracold Rydberg gases
Recent experiments have demonstrated the spontaneous evolution of a gas of
ultracold Rydberg atoms into an expanding ultracold plasma, as well as the
reverse process of plasma recombination into highly excited atomic states.
Treating the evolution of the plasma on the basis of kinetic equations, while
ionization/excitation and recombination are incorporated using rate equations,
we have investigated theoretically the Rydberg-to-plasma transition. Including
the influence of spatial correlations on the plasma dynamics in an approximate
way we find that ionic correlations change the results only quantitatively but
not qualitatively
Coexistence of Single and Double-Quantum Vortex Lines
We discuss the configurations in which singly and doubly quantized vortex
lines may coexist in a rotating superfluid. General principles of energy
minimization lead to the conclusion that in equilibrium the two vortex species
segregate within a cylindrical vortex cluster in two coaxial domains where the
singly quantized lines are in the outer annular region. This is confirmed with
simulation calculations on discrete vortex lines. Experimentally the
coexistence can be studied in rotating superfluid He-A. With cw NMR
techniques we find the radial distribution of the two vortex species to depend
on how the cluster is prepared: (i) By cooling through in rotation,
coexistence in the minimum energy configuration is confirmed. (ii) A glassy
agglomerate is formed if one starts with an equilibrium cluster of
single-quantum vortex lines and adds to it sequentially double-quantum lines,
by increasing the rotation velocity in the superfluid state. This proves that
the energy barriers, which separate different cluster configurations, are too
high for metastabilities to anneal.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures; Changed content, 15 pages, 14 figure
Long Range Magnetic Order and the Darwin Lagrangian
We simulate a finite system of confined electrons with inclusion of the
Darwin magnetic interaction in two- and three-dimensions. The lowest energy
states are located using the steepest descent quenching adapted for velocity
dependent potentials. Below a critical density the ground state is a static
Wigner lattice. For supercritical density the ground state has a non-zero
kinetic energy. The critical density decreases with for exponential
confinement but not for harmonic confinement. The lowest energy state also
depends on the confinement and dimension: an antiferromagnetic cluster forms
for harmonic confinement in two dimensions.Comment: 5 figure
Dislocation-Mediated Melting: The One-Component Plasma Limit
The melting parameter of a classical one-component plasma is
estimated using a relation between melting temperature, density, shear modulus,
and crystal coordination number that follows from our model of
dislocation-mediated melting. We obtain in good agreement
with the results of numerous Monte-Carlo calculations.Comment: 8 pages, LaTe
Linear Paul trap design for an optical clock with Coulomb crystals
We report on the design of a segmented linear Paul trap for optical clock
applications using trapped ion Coulomb crystals. For an optical clock with an
improved short-term stability and a fractional frequency uncertainty of 10^-18,
we propose 115In+ ions sympathetically cooled by 172Yb+. We discuss the
systematic frequency shifts of such a frequency standard. In particular, we
elaborate on high precision calculations of the electric radiofrequency field
of the ion trap using the finite element method. These calculations are used to
find a scalable design with minimized excess micromotion of the ions at a level
at which the corresponding second- order Doppler shift contributes less than
10^-18 to the relative uncertainty of the frequency standard
Enhanced stability of the square lattice of a classical bilayer Wigner crystal
The stability and melting transition of a single layer and a bilayer crystal
consisting of charged particles interacting through a Coulomb or a screened
Coulomb potential is studied using the Monte-Carlo technique. A new melting
criterion is formulated which we show to be universal for bilayer as well as
for single layer crystals in the case of (screened) Coulomb, Lennard--Jones and
1/r^{12} repulsive inter-particle interactions. The melting temperature for the
five different lattice structures of the bilayer Wigner crystal is obtained,
and a phase diagram is constructed as a function of the interlayer distance. We
found the surprising result that the square lattice has a substantial larger
melting temperature as compared to the other lattice structures. This is a
consequence of the specific topology of the defects which are created with
increasing temperature and which have a larger energy as compared to the
defects in e.g. a hexagonal lattice.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Wigner crystal in snaked nanochannels
We study properties of Wigner crystal in snaked nanochannels and show that
they are characterized by conducting sliding phase at low charge densities and
insulating pinned phase emerging above a certain critical charge density. The
transition between these phases has a devil's staircase structure typical for
the Aubry transition in dynamical maps and the Frenkel-Kontorova model. We
discuss implications of this phenomenon for charge density waves in
quasi-one-dimensional organic conductors and for supercapacitors in nanopore
materials.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figs, research at http://www.quantware.ups-tlse.f
Suitability of linear quadrupole ion traps for large Coulomb crystals
Growing and studying large Coulomb crystals, composed of tens to hundreds of
thousands of ions, in linear quadrupole ion traps presents new challenges for
trap implementation. We consider several trap designs, first comparing the
total driven micromotion amplitude as a function of location within the
trapping volume; total micromotion is an important point of comparison since it
can limit crystal size by transfer of radiofrequency drive energy into thermal
energy. We also compare the axial component of micromotion, which leads to
first-order Doppler shifts along the preferred spectroscopy axis in precision
measurements on large Coulomb crystals. Finally, we compare trapping potential
anharmonicity, which can induce nonlinear resonance heating by shifting normal
mode frequencies onto resonance as a crystal grows. We apply a non-deforming
crystal approximation for simple calculation of these anharmonicity-induced
shifts, allowing a straightforward estimation of when crystal growth can lead
to excitation of different nonlinear heating resonances. In the axial
micromotion and anharmonicity points of comparison, we find significant
differences between the compared trap designs, with an original rotated-endcap
trap performing slightly better than the conventional in-line endcap trap
Production of Slow Protonium in Vacuum
We describe how protonium, the quasi-stable antiproton-proton bound system,
has been synthesized following the interaction of antiprotons with the
molecular ion H in a nested Penning trap environment. From a careful
analysis of the spatial distributions of antiproton annihilation events in the
ATHENA experiment, evidence is presented for protonium production with sub-eV
kinetic energies in states around = 70, with low angular momenta. This work
provides a new 2-body system for study using laser spectroscopic techniques.Comment: 9 pages with 5 figures and 1 table. Proceedings of the 4th
International Conference on Trapped Charged Particles and Fundamental Physics
(TCP 06), published in Hyperfine Interaction