Spatial distribution and time evolution of correlation in ultracold neutral plasmas

Abstract

The correlation of ultracold neutral plasmas extracted from the pair correlation function is presented in detail. To get its spatial distribution and time evolution, a large scale simulation using a full molecular-dynamics method with open boundary condition is performed, and the expansion of an ultracold plasma is simulated. We demonstrate that the coupling strength extracted from pair correlation is a good measure for the correlation in ultracold plasma except at the very early stage. The ion–ion pair correlation arises at the timescale of . And results imply that there is a strong coupling area at the outer plasma during the expansion.