Conductor-Insulator Crossover in the Steady-State Ultracold Plasmas

We present a theoretical model of the ionization–recombination balance in the ultracold Rydberg gas–plasma mixture, which is caused by the collective processes rather than by individual interparticle interactions. We consider the electron–ion system where each electron moves for the most part of its time in the effective centrifugal potential formed by the nearest ion and sometimes jumps to the neighboring potential wells due to the perturbations from remote particles. These perturbations are described by a thermal bath with the effective “virial” temperature. Then, the electron with a sufficiently high energy, which can escape from the local potential well, should be considered as free (conducting) one; while the electron with low energy, confined within the well, as forming the Rydberg atom. As follows from our calculations, there is a sharp crossover from the insulating phase (Rydberg gas) to the conducting one (plasma) with increase in the particle density, which somewhat resembles the Mott transition in condensed-matter physics. This model should be well relevant to the steady-state ultracold plasmas obtained in the most recent experiments and represents a promising direction for further research.