Dynamical control in a prethermalized molecular ultracold plasma: Local dissipation drives global relaxation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Prethermalization occurs as an important phase in the dynamics of isolated many-body systems when coupled degrees of freedom relax in a subspace separated from a state of complete thermodynamic equilibrium by a gap in energy or other conserved quantity. Slow equilibration from a prethermal phase can localize the dynamics of natural and model systems despite high dimensionality and limited disorder. Here, we report the signature of an enduring prethermal regime of arrested relaxation in the molecular ultracold plasma that forms following the avalanche of a state-selected Rydberg gas of nitric oxide. For a wide range of initial conditions, this system enters a critical phase in which a density of <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <a:msup> <a:mrow> <a:mi>NO</a:mi> </a:mrow> <a:mo>+</a:mo> </a:msup> </a:math> and electrons balances a population of Rydberg molecules. Electron collisions mix orbital angular momentum, scattering Rydberg electrons to states of very high <b:math xmlns:b="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <b:mi>ℓ</b:mi> </b:math> . The rapid predissociation of molecules in states of low- <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <c:mi>ℓ</c:mi> </c:math> purifies this high- <d:math xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <d:mi>ℓ</d:mi> </d:math> ensemble. The angular momentum barrier that separates <e:math xmlns:e="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <e:msup> <e:mrow> <e:mi>NO</e:mi> </e:mrow> <e:mo>+</e:mo> </e:msup> </e:math> ions and electrons creates an extraordinary gap between the plasma states of <f:math xmlns:f="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <f:mrow> <f:mi>n</f:mi> <f:mo>≈</f:mo> <f:mi>ℓ</f:mi> </f:mrow> </f:math> , with measured <g:math xmlns:g="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <g:mrow> <g:mi>n</g:mi> <g:mo>></g:mo> <g:mn>200</g:mn> </g:mrow> </g:math> and penetrating states of <h:math xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <h:mrow> <h:mi>ℓ</h:mi> <h:mo>=</h:mo> <h:mn>0</h:mn> <h:mo>,</h:mo> <h:mspace width="3.33333pt"/> <h:mn>1</h:mn> </h:mrow> </h:math> , and 2. Evolution to a statistically equilibrated state of N and O atoms cannot occur without Rydberg electron penetration, and this gap blocks relaxation for a millisecond or more. A weak radiofrequency (RF) field drives <j:math xmlns:j="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <j:mi>ℓ</j:mi> </j:math> -mixing electron collisions that erase this gap, causing wholesale dissipation. Remarkably, a local quantum-state transition promoting an exceedingly small fraction of the molecules in the prethermalized ensemble to a predissociative state also acts with a global effect, driving the entire system to a dissipative equilibrium. Using the Lindblad master equation, we illustrate qualitatively similar dynamics for a toy model of an open quantum system that consists of a localized set of spins on which dissipation acts at a single site as a gateway to equilibrium.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".