Order in very cold confined plasmas

The study of the structure and dynamic properties of classical systems of charged particles confined by external forces, and cooled to very low internal energies, is the subject of this article. An infinite system of identical charged particles has been known for some time to form a body-centered cubic lattice and is a simple classical prototype for condensed matter. Recent technical developments in storage rings, ion traps, and laser cooling of ions, have made it possible to produce such systems in the laboratory, though somewhat modified because of their finite size. In this article I discuss what one may expect in such systems [1] and also show some examples of experiments.