Many-body collision contributions to electron momentum damping rates in a plasma influenced by electron strong coupling

Abstract

Experimental studies of electron-ion collision rates in an ultracold neutral plasma can be conducted through measuring the rate of electron plasma oscillation damping. For sufficiently cold and dense conditions where strong coupling influences are important, the measured damping rate was faster by over 30% as compared to theoretical expectations [Chen et al., Phys. Rev. E 96, 013203 (2017)]. We have conducted a series of numerical simulations to isolate the primary source of this difference. By analyzing the distribution of electron velocity changes due to collisions in a molecular dynamics simulation, examining the trajectory of electrons with a high deflection angle in such simulations, and examining the oscillation damping rate while varying the ratio of two-body to three-body electron-ion collision rates, we have found that the difference is consistent with the effect due to many-body collisions that lead to bound electrons. This has implications for other electron-ion collision related transport properties in addition to electron oscillation damping.