Collapse of Vapor-Filled Bubbles in Liquid Helium

Multielectron bubbles (MEBs) are charged cavities in liquid helium which provide an interesting platform for the study of electrons on curved surfaces. Very recently, we have reported an experiment to trap these objects in a two-dimensional Paul trap, where they could be observed from ten to hundreds of milliseconds. During this time, the vapor inside the bubble condensed which resulted in a steady reduction in their size such that beyond a certain time the MEBs could no longer be detected. In this paper, we present experimental data on the lifetime of the bubbles as a function of their initial radius and compare the results with a theoretical model.