Numerical Simulation of Ultracold Plasmas.

where G e ;1 and limiting further development of correlation. Further heating of the electrons occurs as a by-product of three-body recombination. When a model of laser cooling is added to the simulation, the formation of strong ion‐ion correlation is observed. Contrary to earlier suggestion, the rate of three-body recombination is observed to be in reasonable agreement with the traditional formula, R53.9310 29 s 21 @n(cm 23 )# 2 @Te(K)# 29/2 , but care must be taken to use the correct temporally evolving temperature, Te . The simulations are challenging because it is necessary to follow three-body recombination into weakly bound ~high n quasiclassical! Rydberg states, and the time scale for such states is short compared to that for the plasma dynamics. This kind of problem was faced earlier in computational astrophysics when studying binary star formation in globular clusters and the simulation method used here is adapted from such studies. © 2002 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1497166#