In plasmas at very low temperatures formation of neutral atoms is dominatedby collisional three-body recombination, owing to the strong ~ T^(-9/2) scalingof the corresponding recombination rate with the electron temperature T. Whilethis law is well established at high temperatures, the unphysical divergence asT -> 0 clearly suggest a breakdown in the low-temperature regime. Here, wepresent a combined molecular dynamics-Monte-Carlo study of electron-ionrecombination over a wide range of temperatures and densities. Our resultsreproduce the known behavior of the recombination rate at high temperatures,but reveal significant deviations with decreasing temperature. We discuss thefate of the kinetic bottleneck and resolve the divergence-problem as the plasmaenters the ultracold, strongly coupled domain.
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