We investigate the thermodynamic properties of a dilute Bose gas in a correlated random potential using exact path integral Monte Carlo methods. The study is carried out in continuous space and disorder is produced in the simulations by a three-dimensional (3D) speckle pattern with tunable intensity and correlation length. We calculate the shift of the superfluid transition temperature due to disorder and we highlight the role of quantum localization by comparing the critical chemical potential with the classical percolation threshold. The equation of state of the gas is determined in the regime of strong disorder, where superfluidity is suppressed and the normal phase exists down to very low temperatures. We find a T 2 dependence of the energy in agreement with the expected behavior in the Bose glass phase. We also discuss the major role played by the disorder correlation length and we make contact with a Hartree–Fock mean-field approach that holds if the correlation length is very large. The density profiles are analyzed as a function of temperature and interaction strength. Effects of localization and the depletion of the order parameter are emphasized in the comparison between local condensate and total density. At very low temperature, we find that the energy and the particle distribution of the gas are very well described by the T =0 Gross–Pitaevskii theory, even in the regime of very strong disorder.
We study thermal properties of a trapped Bose-Bose mixture in a dilute regime using quantum Monte Carlo methods. Our main aim is to investigate the dependence of the superfluid density and the condensate fraction on temperature for the mixed and separated phases. To this end we use the diffusion Monte Carlo method in the zero-temperature limit and the path-integral Monte Carlo method for finite temperatures. The results obtained are compared with solutions of the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations for the mixture at zero temperature. We notice the existence of an anisotropic superfluid density in some phase-separated mixtures. Our results also show that the temperature evolution of the superfluid density and condensate fraction is slightly different, showing noteworthy situations where the superfluid fraction is smaller than the condensate fraction.
We investigate the properties of a homogeneous dipolar Bose gas in a weak three-dimensional isotropic speckle disorder at finite temperatures. By using the Bogoliubov theory (beyond the mean field), we calculate the condensate and the superfluid fractions as a function of density and strengths of disorder and interaction. The disorder impact on the anomalous density, the chemical potential, and the ground-state energy is also analyzed. We show that the peculiar interplay of the dipole-dipole interaction and weak disorder makes the superfluid fraction and sound velocity anisotropic.
Quantum systems consisting of many particles are both interesting from the physics and the mathematics perspective. One aspect that makes them fascinating from the physics point of view is that they can exhibit quantum effects on macroscopic scales such as Bose-Einstein condensation. This phenomenon, first predicted 100 years ago by Bose [19] and Einstein [44], occurs when a dilute gas of bosons is cooled down to very low temperatures. Below a certain critical temperature a condensate forms, meaning that a macroscopic fraction of the particles is in the same one-particle state, and thus, quantum phenomena become relevant on length scales much larger than the individual atom. The occurrence of Bose-Einstein condensation is also related to superfluidity as suggested in [88]. Bose-Einstein condensation has been achieved experimentally independently by the groups of Cornell and Wieman [3] and Ketterle [40] earning them a Nobel prize in 2001. While Bose and Einstein analyzed theoretically the non-interacting gas, an effective theory describing weakly interacting Bose gases was proposed by Bogoliubov in 1947 with the goal of explaining the occurrence of superfluidity in liquid helium [18]. Using assumptions such as that condensation indeed occurs, his theory yields predictions for the low-energy states of the system. Seen from the mathematics perspective, describing the Bose gas is an interesting challenge due to the strong correlations between particles introduced by the interaction making this case much harder to study than the non-interacting one. In particular, a proof that Bose-Einstein condensation occurs in the thermodynamic limit for continuous systems is still out of reach. However, there has been a lot of work regarding the rigorous analysis of bosonic systems in various relevant regimes. This thesis contains three new contributions establishing rigorous results on bosonic systems in different, physically relevant settings. It is based on the articles [37, 27, 31]. The first result concerns the time-evolution of initially trapped Bose gases in the ultra-dilute Gross-Pitaevskii regime. Under some assumptions on the initial data satisfied in particular by a class of states that are expected to approximate the ground state in a trap, we derive a quasi-free approximation that is close to the true solution in
L2-norm. In particular, we show that this approximate wave function is described in terms of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-particle state following the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation together with pair excitations with respect to this condensate. As a corollary, we establish a central limit theorem for bounded one-particle observables. The second result is a simple proof of Bose-Einstein condensation for interacting, ultra-dilute gases. More specifically, we consider scalings interpolating between the Gross-Pitaevskii regime and the thermodynamic limit. While condensation had been shown to hold in these regimes before, the advantage of the method used here is its simplicity. Lastly, the third result establishes an upper bound on the ground state energy of a dilute Bose gas in the thermodynamic limit. It captures rigorously the third order correction to the energy per unit volume for sufficiently low densities as predicted in the physics literature first by Wu and subsequently others.
Full-text embargoed until: 2026-01-01Several microscopic theories point out that Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), i.e., a macroscopic occupation of the lowest energy single particle state in many-boson systems, may appear also in quantum fluids and solids and that it is at the origin of the phenomenon of superfluidity. Nevertheless, the connection between BEC and superfluidity is still matter of debate, since the experimental evidences indicating a non zero condensate fraction in superfluid helium are only indirect. In the theoretical study of BEC in quantum fluids and solids, perturbative approaches are useless because of the strong correlations between the atoms, arising both from the interatomic potential and from the quantum nature of the system. Microscopic Quantum Monte Carlo simulations provide a reliable description of these systems. In particular, the Path Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) method is very suitable for this purpose. This method is able to provide exact results for the properties of the quantum system, both at zero and finite temperature, only with the definition of the Hamiltonian and of the symmetry properties of the system, giving an easy picture for superfluidity and BEC in many-boson systems. In this thesis, we apply PIMC methods to the study of several quantum fluids and solids. We describe in detail all the features of PIMC, from the sampling methods to the estimators of the physical properties. We present also the most recent techniques, such as the high-order approximations for the thermal density matrix and the worm algorithm, used in PIMC to provide reliable simulations. We study the liquid phase of condensed 4He, providing unbiased estimations of the one-body density matrix g1(r). We analyze the model for g1(r) used to fit the experimental data, highlighting its merits and its faults. In particular we see that, even if it presents some difficulties in the description of the overall behavior of g1(r), it can provide an accurate estimation of the kinetic energy K and of the condensate fraction n0 of the system. Furthermore, we show that our results for n0 as a function of the pressure are in a good agreement with the most recent experimental results. The study of the solid phase of 4He is the most significant part of this thesis. The recent observation of non classical rotational inertia (NCRI) effects in solid helium has generated big interest in the study of an eventual supersolid phase, characterized at the same time by crystalline order and superfluidity. Nevertheless, until now it has been impossible to give a theoretical model able to describe all the experimental evidences. In this work, we perform PIMC simulations of 4He at high densities, according to different microscopic configurations of the atoms. In commensurate crystals we see that BEC does not appear, our model being able to reproduce the momentum distribution obtained form neutron scattering experiments. In a crystal with vacancies, we have been able to see a transition to a superfluid phase at temperatures in agreement with experimental results if the vacancy concentration is low enough. In amorphous solids, superfluid effects are enhanced but appear at temperatures higher than the experimental estimation for the transition temperature. Finally, we study also metastable disordered configurations in molecular para-hydrogen at low temperature. The aim of this study is to investigate if a Bose liquid other than helium can display superfluidity. Choosing accurately a ¿quantum liquid¿ initial configuration and the dimensions of the simulation box, we have been able to frustrate the formation of the crystal and to calculate the temperature dependence of the superfluid density, showing a transition to a superfluid phase at temperatures close to 1 K.
We report diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) and path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) calculations of the properties of a one-dimensional (1D) Bose quantum fluid. The equation of state, the superfluid fraction ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}/{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$, the one-body density matrix
n(x), the pair distribution function
g(x), and the static structure factor
S(q) are evaluated. The aim is to test Luttinger liquid (LL) predictions for 1D fluids over a wide range of fluid density and LL parameter
K. The 1D Bose fluid examined is a single chain of
4He atoms confined to a line in the center of a narrow nanopore. The atoms cannot exchange positions in the nanopore, the criterion for 1D. The fluid density is varied from the spinodal density where the 1D liquid is unstable to droplet formation to the density of bulk liquid
4He. In this range,
K varies from
K>2 at low density, where a robust superfluid is predicted, to
K<0.5, where fragile 1D superflow and solidlike peaks in
S(q) are predicted. For uniform pore walls, the ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}/{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ scales as predicted by LL theory. The
n(x) and
g(x) show long range oscillations and decay with
x as predicted by LL theory. The amplitude of the oscillations is large at high density (small
K) and small at low density (large
K). The
K values obtained from different properties agree well verifying the internal structure of LL theory. In the presence of disorder, the ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}/{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ does not scale as predicted by LL theory. A single
vJ parameter in the LL theory that recovers LL scaling was not found. The one body density matrix (OBDM) in disorder is well predicted by LL theory. The ``dynamical'' superfluid fraction, ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}^{D}/{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$, is determined. The physics of the deviation from LL theory in disorder and the ``dynamical'' ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}^{D}/{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{0}$ are discussed.