arXiv:1004.3954 · Physical Review A
Fragmented many-body states of definite angular momentum and stability of attractive three-dimensional condensates
Marios C. Tsatsos, Alexej I. Streltsov, Ofir E. Alon, L. S. Cederbaum
Abstract
A three-dimensional attractive Bose-Einstein condensate is expected to collapse when the number of the particles $N$ in the ground state or the interaction strength ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{0}$ exceeds a critical value. We study systems of different particle numbers and interaction strength and find that even if the overall ground state is collapsed there is a plethora of fragmented excited states that are still in the metastable region. Utilizing the configuration interaction expansion we determine the spectrum of the ground (``yrast'') and excited many-body states with definite total angular-momentum quantum numbers $0\ensuremath{\leqslant}L\ensuremath{\leqslant}N$ and $\ensuremath{-}L\ensuremath{\leqslant}{M}_{L}\ensuremath{\leqslant}L$, and we find and examine states that survive the collapse. This opens up the possibility of realizing a metastable system with overcritical numbers of bosons in a ground state with angular momentum $L\ensuremath{\ne}0$. The multiorbital mean-field theory predictions about the existence of fragmented metastable states with overcritical numbers of bosons are verified and elucidated at the many-body level. The descriptions of the total angular momentum within the mean-field and the many-body approaches are compared.