Dipolar interactions in ultracold ion chains

CECILIA CORMICK

Ulm

Encuentro; Network Meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; 2010

Our proposal is focused on the theoretical investigation of the prop-erties of 1D Wigner crystals of ions with dipolar electric moments. Thesystem we will consider is composed of singly-charged particles, atomic or molecular ions, that are confined by an external potential and mutually repel via long-range Coulomb interactions. In addition, they also possess internal degrees of freedom associated to their electric dipolar moments. By means of laser cooling the particles form crystalline structures, which are mainly determined by the interplay between the Coulomb repulsion and the trapping potential. Within this scenario we will study the coupling between the dipolar moments and the vibrational modes of the ion crystal. We aim at characterizing how the stationary and dynamic properties of the system are modified by this coupling. In particular, we will focus on the structural phase transition from a linear to a zig-zag chain, and analyze how the statistical properties at the critical point are altered by the interaction between vibrational and dipolar degrees of freedom.