Caging of particles in one-component plasmas -: art. no. 225001

Strongly coupled Coulomb systems are characterized by localization ("caging") of particles trapped and oscillating in slowly fluctuating local potential wells. This observation constitutes the basic assumption underlying the quasilocalized charge approximation. Using molecular dynamics simulation we study the changes in the particles' surroundings (cages) in a classical three-dimensional one-component plasma. The results of our analysis show that at high coupling values, substantial changes occur only after several plasma oscillation cycles. We also analyze the oscillation frequencies of the caged particles and relate the decorrelation of the cages to the process of self-diffusion.