Dissipative dynamics of atomic and molecular Rydberg gases: Avalanche to ultracold plasma states of strong coupling

Aghigh, M.; Grant, K. M.; Haenel, Rafael; Marroquin, Kevin L.; Martins, Fernanda B. V.; Sadegi, H.; Schulz-Weiling, Markus; Sous, John; Wang, R.; Keller, James S.; Grant, Edward R.

doi:10.1088/1361-6455/ab604f

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…This competition underlies a vast range of the most elusive phenomena in strongly correlated physics. The present work provides us with a better understanding of the stability of many-body Rydberg systems [14,15,[38][39][40][41] and the mechanism for ultracold plasma formation [23,24,28,42]. Importantly, on timescales much shorter than the 60 nanoseconds dwell time observed in our experiments coherent electron dynamics can in principle generate metal-like phases in which Rydberg electrons are shared by multiple sites of a Mott insulator [1].…”

mentioning

confidence: 63%

“…As schematically shown in Fig. 1c, it is well established that there are generally two processes leading to the ionization of interacting Rydberg atoms and, under certain circumstances, the formation of an ultracold plasma [23,24]. The initial ionization process following electronic excitation is Penning ionization of a pair of interacting Rydberg atoms [4,5,25,26].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Ultrafast Creation of Overlapping Rydberg Electrons in an Atomic BEC and Mott-Insulator Lattice

et al. 2020

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confidence: 63%

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confidence: 99%

Ultrafast Creation of Overlapping Rydberg Electrons in an Atomic BEC and Mott-Insulator Lattice

et al. 2020

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“…The arrested phase evolves to approximately the same plasma density, regardless of the initial principal quantum number and density of the Rydberg gas [50,60]. But, evidence shows that this self-organization relies on the strong correlation created by a wave of locally balanced numbers of NO + ions and Rydberg molecules [50].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rydberg-Rydberg interactions occur with coupling energies typical of condensed matter in systems with the density of a rarified gas [34]. Cooperative behaviour in atomic Rydberg ensembles ranges from precisely defined pairwise and higher-order coherent phenomenon [35][36][37][38] to aggregation [39][40][41], dissipation [42][43][44][45], non-equilibrium phase transitions [46,47] and avalanche to plasma [48][49][50].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mm-wave Rydberg-Rydberg resonances as a witness of intermolecular coupling in the arrested relaxation of a molecular ultracold plasma

Wang,

Sous,

Aghigh

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Out-of-equilibrium, strong correlation in a many-body system can trigger emergent properties that act in important ways to constrain the natural dissipation of energy and matter. Networks of atoms, intricately engineered to arrange positions and tune interaction energies, exhibit striking dynamics. But, strong correlation itself can also act to restrict available phase space. Relaxation confined by strong correlation gives rise to scale invariance and density distributions characteristic of self-organized criticality. For some time, we have observed signs of self-organization in the avalanche, bifurcation and quench of a state-selected Rydberg gas of nitric oxide to form an ultracold, strongly correlated ultracold plasma. The robust arrested relaxation of this system forms a disordered state with quantum-mechanical properties that appear to support a coherent destruction of transport. Work reported here focuses on initial stages of avalanche and quench, using the mm-wave spectroscopy of an embedded quantum probe to characterize the intermolecular interaction dynamics associated with the evolution to plasma. Double-resonance excitation prepares a Rydberg gas of nitric oxide composed of a single selected state, n0f (2) (referring to a particular principal quantum number from n0 = 30 to 70 in the f ( = 3) Rydberg series converging to the NO + rotational state, N + = 2). Penning ionization, followed by an avalanche of electron-Rydberg collisions, forms a plasma of NO + ions and weakly bound electrons, in which a residual population of n0 Rydberg molecules evolves to high-. Predissociation depletes the plasma of low-molecules. Relaxation ceases and n0 (2) molecules with ≥ 4 persist for very long times, evidently under collision-free conditions. At short times, excitation spectra of mm-wave Rydberg-Rydberg transitions, n0f (2) → (n0 ± 1)g(2) mark the rate of electron-collisional -mixing. At long times, n0 (2) → (n0 ± 1)d( 2) depletion resonances signal collision-free energy redistribution in the basis of central-field Rydberg states. The widths and asymmetries of Fano lineshapes witness the degree to which coupling to the arrested bath broadens the bright state as well as how bright-state predissociation mixes the network of levels in the localized ensemble.

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“…Recent laboratory experiments have shown ultracold neutral plasmas (UNPs) to be effective HEDP simulators over a limited range of parameters (11,(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50). In these stronglycoupled, non-degenerate, quasi-homogeneous, quasi-steady-state plasmas the charge state is well-known, the initial electron temperature, independent of the ion temperature, is chosen with sub-percent accuracy, and the time-evolving temperatures and densities of each ion species are readily determined.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temperature relaxation in strongly-coupled binary ionic mixtures

Sprenkle

Silvestri

Murillo

et al. 2021

Preprint

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New facilities such as the National Ignition Facility and the Linac Coherent Light Source have pushed the frontiers of high energy-density matter. These facilities offer unprecedented opportunities for exploring extreme states of matter, ranging from cryogenic solid-state systems to hot, dense plasmas, with applications to inertial-confinement fusion and astrophysics. However, significant gaps in our understanding of material properties in these rapidly evolving systems still persist. In particular, non-equilibrium transport properties of strongly-coupled Coulomb systems remain an open question. Here, we study ion-ion temperature relaxation in a binary mixture, exploiting a recently-developed dual-species ultracold neutral plasma. We compare measured relaxation rates with atomistic simulations and a range of popular theories. Our work validates the assumptions and capabilities of the simulations and invalidates theoretical models in this regime. This work illustrates an approach for precision determinations of detailed material properties in Coulomb mixtures across a wide range of conditions.

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Dissipative dynamics of atomic and molecular Rydberg gases: Avalanche to ultracold plasma states of strong coupling

Cited by 11 publications

References 71 publications

Ultrafast Creation of Overlapping Rydberg Electrons in an Atomic BEC and Mott-Insulator Lattice

Ultrafast Creation of Overlapping Rydberg Electrons in an Atomic BEC and Mott-Insulator Lattice

mm-wave Rydberg-Rydberg resonances as a witness of intermolecular coupling in the arrested relaxation of a molecular ultracold plasma

Temperature relaxation in strongly-coupled binary ionic mixtures

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