Trapping and evolution dynamics of strongly magnetized cold gases.

Cold Rydberg atoms and ultracold plasmas have been studied in the strong-magnetization regime. In this new territory, novel atomic and plasma states---such as guiding-center drift Rydberg attains and strongly magnetized, quasi-neutral, ultracold plasmas---have been created and investigated. The evolution dynamics studies of these exotic diamagnetic forms of matter, made possible by implementing a superconducting magnetic atom trap, revealed rich dynamical features in the systems: The Landau-quantized energy structure has led to entirely different evolutions of the highly excited atoms in laser-excited or drift Rydberg states than in magnetic-field-free cases; and the presence of the strong magnetic field has drastically altered the collisional behavior and expansion dynamics of the plasmas. Furthermore, atom cooling and trapping methodology has been extended in multiple directions. Firstly, laser cooling and magnetic trapping of ground-state atoms has been demonstrated in magnetic; fields exceeding 3 Tesla, representing a 20-fold increase in the field-strength of cold-atom traps. Secondly, the trapping of Rydberg atoms with a lifetime of 80 ms has been achieved. This trapping technique exploits the quasi-free nature of Rydberg electrons, which can be adopted in other forms of Rydberg-atom trapping. Lastly; the trapping of two-component, ultracold plasmas has been demonstrated in a nested Penning-trap configuration. The confinement of quasi-neutral ultracold plasmas allowed us to observe novel effects such as the correlation between the ionic oscillation and the electron energy distribution.Ph.D.Atomic physicsPlasma physicsPure SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/125995/2/3224850.pd