Conductor-Insulator Crossover in the Steady-State Ultracold Plasmas

TL;DR

This paper models the ionization-recombination balance in ultracold Rydberg gas-plasma mixtures, predicting a sharp crossover from insulating to conducting phases akin to a Mott transition, relevant to recent experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical model focusing on collective processes causing phase crossover in ultracold plasmas, differing from traditional interparticle interaction models.

Findings

Predicted a sharp crossover from insulating to conducting phase with increasing density.

Model aligns with recent experimental observations of steady-state ultracold plasmas.

Resembles Mott transition in condensed matter physics.

Abstract

We present a theoretical model of the ionization-recombination balance in the ultracold Rydberg gas-plasma mixture, which is caused by the collective processes rather than by individual interparticle interactions. This should be well relevant to the steady-state ultracold plasmas obtained in the recent experiment [B. Zelener, et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 115301 (2024)]. As follows from our calculations, there should be a sharp crossover from the insulating phase (Rydberg gas) to the conducting one (plasma) with increase in the particle density, which closely resembles Mott transition in the condensed-matter physics.