Strongly Coupled Plasmas via Rydberg-Blockade of Cold Atoms

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method to generate ultracold plasmas in the strongly coupled regime using Rydberg blockade in cold atoms, enabling new research avenues and applications.

Contribution

The authors propose a new scheme leveraging Rydberg blockade to produce strongly coupled ultracold plasmas without major experimental modifications.

Findings

Universal behavior of Coulomb coupling parameter observed

Temperature reduction by over an order of magnitude achieved

Connection established between Rydberg gases and ultracold plasmas

Abstract

We propose and analyze a new scheme to produce ultracold neutral plasmas deep in the strongly coupled regime. The method exploits the interaction blockade between cold atoms excited to high-lying Rydberg states and therefore does not require substantial extensions of current ultracold plasma experiments. Extensive simulations reveal a universal behavior of the resulting Coulomb coupling parameter, providing a direct connection between the physics of strongly correlated Rydberg gases and ultracold plasmas. The approach is shown to reduce currently accessible temperatures by more than an order of magnitude, which opens up a new regime for ultracold plasma research and cold ion-beam applications with readily available experimental techniques.