In the last decade, ultracold plasmas have been created in the laboratory by photo-ionizing laser-cooled atoms. To understand the overall dynamics of ultracold plasmas, one needs to understand Rydberg collisional processes at ultracold temperatures. The two kinds of problems addressed in this thesis are: study of Rydberg atomic processes at ultracold temperatures, and a study of the overall dynamics of
the ultracold plasmas.
Theoretical methods based on quantal-classical correspondence is used to understand Rydberg atomic processes such as radiative cascade, and radiative recombination. A simulation method suitable for ultracold collisions is developed and tested.
This method is then applied to study collisional-Stark mixing in Rydberg atoms.
To study the dynamics of the ultracold plasmas, a King model for the electrons in plasmas is proposed. The King model is a stationary, finite sized electron distribution for the electrons in a cloud of fixed ions with a Gaussian distribution. A Monte-Carlo method is developed to simulate the overall dynamics of the King distribution.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/26522 |
| Date | 17 November 2008 |
| Creators | Balaraman, Gouthaman S. |
| Publisher | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | Georgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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