title: Negative mass instability for interacting particles in a 1D box: theory and application.
abstract: We demonstrate that the synchronization effect observed [Pedersen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 055001 (2001)]], when a bunch of ions oscillates between two mirrors in an electrostatic ion beam trap, can be explained as a negative mass instability. We derive simple necessary conditions for the existence of a regime in which this dispersionless behavior occurs and demonstrate that in this regime, the ion trap can be used as a high resolution mass spectrometer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Particle Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Strasser
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Geyer
authors.forename: H B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Pedersen
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Heber
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goldberg
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Amarant
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Diner
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Rudich
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sagi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rappaport
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Tannor
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zajfman