Collisional three-body recombination in strongly coupled ultracold plasmas

The collisional three-body (e - e - ion) recombination in an ultracold plasma is considered when the temperature T is small and the coupling parameter characterizing the interaction of electrons and ions exceeds unity. For these conditions, we calculate the average energy of the electron and find the recombination coefficient. The latter for small values of the coupling parameter becomes similar to T-9/2 and for large ones is inversely proportional to the plasma frequency. We compare the results obtained with different theoretical models and the numerical simulation data of the recombination process. Published by AIP Publishing.