Suppressing electron disorder-induced heating of ultracold neutral plasma via optical lattice

Abstract

Disorder-induced heating (DIH) prevents ultracold neutral plasma into the electron strong coupling regime. Here, we propose a scheme to suppress electronic DIH via optical lattice. We simulate the evolution dynamics of ultracold neutral plasma constrained by three-dimensional optical lattice using the classical molecular dynamics method. The results show that for experimentally achievable conditions, electronic DIH is suppressed by a factor of 1.3, and the Coulomb coupling strength can reach 0.8, which is approaching the strong coupling regime. Suppressing electronic DIH via optical lattice may pave a way for the research of electronic strongly coupled plasma.