Thermalization and Cooling of Cold, Highly-Magnetized, One-Component Electron Plasmas

Thermalization of strongly-magnetized plasmas relies on the dynamics of particle collisions and interaction with the background electromagnetic field. The nature of these interactions changes greatly as a plasma is cooled to lower temperatures. In particular, these effects can have a large effect on techniques requiring sympathetic cooling through cyclotron radiation of a cloud of electrons. With the intention of cooling dense ($\sim 10^9 / \rm{cc}$) non-neutral plasmas to $4 \rm{K}$, we model the various mechanisms that are important in this regime. As a one-component plasma cools, the transverse and longitudinal degrees of motion become decoupled in collisions, inhibiting thermalization. Electromagnetic cavity modes couple in a complex manner to the electrons, changing the expected cyclotron radiation emission rates and absorption of energy from electrical noise. Here, we present a model for these mechanisms and a proposed experiment currently in construction for characterizing their behavior.