Relaxation dynamics in a molecular ultracold plasma : control and modeling
department or school: Science, Faculty of
department or school: Physics and Astronomy, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Wang, Ruoxi
issued: 2023-10-19T17:32:50Z
issued: 2023
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: In many-body systems out-of-equilibrium, strong coupling triggers emergent properties that can act to limit the natural dissipation of energy and matter. The physics of strong coupling plays an important but incompletely understood role in the dynamics of natural plasmas over a wide range of length scales. Particularly remarkable signs of hindered transport appear under laboratory conditions in the self-organized avalanche, bifurcation, and quench of the nitric oxide molecular ultracold plasma. Here, a UV-UV double-resonant excitation of nitric oxide, cooled to 500 mK in a skimmed supersonic molecular beam prepares an ellipsoidal Rydberg gas of known initial density in a single selected state of principal quantum number, n₀. Penning ionization, followed by an avalanche of electron-Rydberg collisions, forms a plasma of NO⁺ ions and weakly bound electrons, in which a residual population of n₀ Rydberg molecules evolves to a state of high orbital angular momentum, ℓ. A 60 MHz radio frequency pulse with a peak-to-peak amplitude as low as 400 mV/cm, applied to a plasma in a state of arrested relaxation, depletes the residual Rydberg signal. Similarly, mm-wave fields in the range from 70 to 100 GHz tuned to resonance with n₀f (2)→(n₀ ±1)d(2) transitions deplete the plasma signal to an amplitude near zero. We associate both effects with Rydberg electronic orbital angular momentum redistribution. New theoretical work has developed a primitive picture of this system using a Lindblad master equation to describe the Markovian dynamics that arise when a closed quantum system of disordered, randomly interacting molecular dipoles couples to a thermal continuum of free atoms.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/86219
note: Relaxation dynamics in a molecular ultracold plasma:control and modelingbyRuoxi WangM.A. Stony Brook University, 2016B.Sc. University of Waterloo, 2015B.Sc. Beijing Institute of Technology, 2015A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENTOF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFDoctor of PhilosophyinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORALSTUDIES(Physics)The University of British Columbia(Vancouver)October 2023© Ruoxi Wang, 2023The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Fac-ulty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled:Relaxation dynamics in a molecular ultracold plasma: control and mod-elingsubmitted by Ruoxi Wang in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degreeof Doctor of Philosophy in Physics.Examining Committee:Edward Grant, Professor, Department of Chemistry/Department of Physics andAstronomy, UBCSupervisorValery Milner, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UBCSupervisory Committee MemberTakamasa Momose, Professor, Department of Chemistry/Department of Physicsand Astronomy, UBCUniversity ExaminerKeng Chou, Professor, Department of Chemistry, UBCUniversity ExaminerJacob Roberts, Professor, Department of Physics, Colorado State UniversityExternal ExaminerAdditional Supervisory Committee Members:Kirk Madison, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, UBCSupervisory Committee MemberRoman Krems, Professor, Department of Chemistry, UBCSupervisory Committee MemberiiAbstractIn many-body systems out-of-equilibrium, strong coupling triggers emergent prop-erties that can act to limit the natural dissipation of energy and matter. The physicsof strong coupling plays an important but incompletely understood role in thedynamics of natural plasmas over a wide range of length scales. Particularlyremarkable signs of hindered transport appear under laboratory conditions in theself-organized avalanche, bifurcation, and quench of the nitric oxide molecularultracold plasma.Here, …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2023-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0437231
language: eng
degree discipline: Physics
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Grant, Edward
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86219