Eur. Phys. J. D 40, 45-50 (2006)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2006-00134-y

Use of Rydberg atoms to control electron temperatures in ultracold plasmas

¹ ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
² Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, CNRS II, Bâtiment 505, Campus d'Orsay, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France
³ Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Str. 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany

Corresponding author: ^a tpohl@cfa.harvard.edu

Received: 14 January 2006
Revised: 10 March 2006
Published online: 15 June 2006

Abstract

We investigate the idea of adding Rydberg atoms to an ultracold plasma to control the electronic temperature of the plasma. We show that a certain amount of control is indeed possible, and discuss limitations for the extent of electron cooling. Experimental data are found to be in good agreement with numerical simulations.