Browsing by Author "Vrinceanu, D."

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    Demonstrating universal scaling for dynamics of Yukawa one-component plasmas after an interaction quench
    (American Physical Society, 2016) Langin, T.K.; Strickler, T.; Maksimovic, N.; McQuillen, P.; Pohl, T.; Vrinceanu, D.; Killian, T.C.
    The Yukawa one-component plasma (OCP) model is a paradigm for describing plasmas that contain one component of interest and one or more other components that can be treated as a neutralizing, screening background. In appropriately scaled units, interactions are characterized entirely by a screening parameter, κ. As a result, systems of similar κ show the same dynamics, regardless of the underlying parameters (e.g., density and temperature). We demonstrate this behavior using ultracold neutral plasmas (UNPs) created by photoionizing a cold (T≤10 mK) gas. The ions in UNP systems are well described by the Yukawa model, with the electrons providing the screening. Creation of the plasma through photoionization can be thought of as a rapid quench of the interaction potential from κ=∞ to a final κ value set by the electron density and temperature. We demonstrate experimentally that the postquench dynamics are universal in κ over a factor of 30 in density and an order of magnitude in temperature. Results are compared with molecular-dynamics simulations. We also demonstrate that features of the postquench kinetic energy evolution, such as disorder-induced heating and kinetic-energy oscillations, can be used to determine the plasma density and the electron temperature.