A two-body correlated basis set is used to develop a many-body theory which is valid for any number of bosons in the trap. The formalism incorporates the van der Waals interaction and two-body correlations in an exact way. The theory has successfully been applied to Bose-Einstein condensates---dilute weakly interacting and also dilute but having a large scattering length. Even in the extreme dilute condition, we observe the breakdown of the shape-independent approximation and the interatomic correlation plays an important role in the large particle-number limit. This correlated many-body calculation can handle, within the two-body correlation approximation, the entire range of atom number of experimentally achieved condensates. Next we successfully push the basis function for large scattering lengths where the mean-field results are manifestly bad. The sharp increase in correlation energy clearly shows the beyond-mean-field effect. We also calculate one-particle densities for various scattering lengths and particle numbers. Our many-body calculation exhibits the finite-size effect in the one-body density.
We calculate the energy fluctuation of a truly finite number of interacting bosons and study the role of interaction. Although the ideal Bose gas in thermodynamic limit is an exactly solvable problem and analytic expression of various fluctuation measures exists, the experimental Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is a nontrivial many-body problem. We employ a two-body correlated basis function and utilize the realistic van der Waals interaction. We calculate the energy fluctuation
(△E2) of the interacting trapped bosons and plot
kB2T2△E2 as a function of
TcT. In the classical limit
△E2 is related to the specific heat per particle
cv through the relation
△E2=kBT2cv. We have obtained a distinct hump in
kB2T2△E2 around the condensation point for three-dimesional harmonically trapped Bose gas when the particle number $N\ensuremath{\simeq}5000$ and above which corresponds to the second-order phase transition. However for finite-size interacting bosons ($N\ensuremath{\simeq}$ a few hundred) the hump is not sharp, and the maximum in
kB2T2△E2 can be interpreted as a smooth increase in the scaled fluctuation below
Tc and then a decrease above
Tc. To illustrate the justification we also calculate
cv, which exhibits the same feature, which leads to the conjecture that for finite-sized interacting bosons phase transition is ruled out.
We calculate the ground-state energy and the collective excitation frequency of trapped bosons at large scattering length interacting via the realistic two-body van der Waals potential. Our many-body method keeps two-body correlations produced by all interacting pairs. When the scattering length is small compared to the trap size and the number of bosons in the trap is of the order of a few thousands, the mean-field results are in good agreement with the many-body results. However for large particle numbers, even when the condensate is sufficiently dilute, the interatomic correlation comes into the picture. When the scattering length is quite large near the Feshbach resonance, the Bose gas becomes highly correlated. The many-body results are close to the Gross-Pitaevskii results for a small number of bosons, however, large deviations are noted in the large particle limit. We also calculate the lowest collective excitation and the interaction energy for large scattering lengths. The monopole excitation frequency exhibits a pronounced dependence on the scattering length. We also observe a universal behavior for the interaction energy at the limit of large scattering length.
We introduce a general approximate method for calculating the one-body correlations and the momentum distributions of one-dimensional Bose gases at finite interaction strengths and temperatures trapped in smooth confining potentials. Our method combines asymptotic techniques for the long-distance behavior of the gas (similar to Luttinger liquid theory) with known short-distance expansions. We derive analytical results for the limiting cases of strong and weak interactions and provide a general procedure for calculating one-body correlations at any interaction strength. A step-by-step explanation of the numerical method used to compute Green's functions (needed as input to our theory) is included. We benchmark our method against exact numerical calculations and compare its predictions to recent experimental results.
We calculate the density profiles and density correlation functions of the one-dimensional Bose gas in a harmonic trap, using the exact finite-temperature solutions for the uniform case, and applying a local density approximation. The results are valid for a trapping potential that is slowly varying relative to a correlation length. They allow a direct experimental test of the transition from the weak-coupling Gross-Pitaevskii regime to the strong-coupling, ``fermionic'' Tonks-Girardeau regime. We also calculate the average two-particle correlation which characterizes the bulk properties of the sample, and find that it can be well approximated by the value of the local pair correlation in the trap center.
We calculate the density profiles and density correlation functions of the one-dimensional Bose gas in a harmonic trap, using the exact finite-temperature solutions for the uniform case, and applying a local density approximation. The results are valid for a trapping potential which is slowly varying relative to a correlation length. They allow a direct experimental test of the transition from the weak coupling Gross-Pitaevskii regime to the strong coupling, \'fermionic\' Tonks-Girardeau regime. We also calculate the average two-particle correlation which characterizes the bulk properties of the sample, and find that it can be well approximated by the value of the local pair correlation in the trap center.