Rapid heating of a strongly coupled plasma at the solid-liquid phase transition

Published

January 21, 2005

Author(s)

M J. Jensen, T Hasegawa, John Bollinger, Daniel H. Dubin

Abstract

Between 10^{4 and 10}u6 A9Be^+ ions were trapped in a Penning trap and laser-cooled to siml K, where they formed a crystalline plasma. We measured the ion temperature as a function of time after turning off the laser-cooling and observed a rapid temperature increase as the plasma undergoes the solid-liquid phase transition at T=10-mK Gamma sim). We present evidence that this rapid heating is due to a sudden release of energy from weakly cooled degrees of freedom involving the cyclotron motion of trapped impurity ions.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

94

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

laser cooling, Penning trap, phase transition, strongly coupled plasma

Citation

Jensen, M. , Hasegawa, T. , Bollinger, J. and Dubin, D. (2005), Rapid heating of a strongly coupled plasma at the solid-liquid phase transition, Physical Review Letters (Accessed July 17, 2024)