Previous approaches of emergent thermalization for condensed matter based on typical wavefunctions are extended to generate an intrinsically quantum theory of gases. Gases are fundamentally quantum objects at all temperatures, by virtue of rapid delocalization of their constituents. When there is a sufficiently broad spread in the energy of eigenstates, a well-defined temperature is shown to arise by photon production when the samples are optically thick. This produces a highly accurate approximation to the Planck distribution so that thermalization arises from the initial data as a consequence of purely quantum and unitary dynamics. These results are used as a foil for some common hydrodynamic theory of ultracold gases. It is suggested here that strong history dependence typically remains in these gases and so limits the validity of thermodynamics in their description. These problems are even more profound in the extension of hydrodynamics to such gases when they are optically thin, even when their internal energy is not low. We investigate rotation of elliptically trapped gases and consistency problems with deriving a local hydrodynamic approach. The presence of vorticity that is "hidden" from order parameter approaches is discussed along with some buoyancy intrinsically associated with vorticity that gives essential quantum corrections to gases in the regimes where standard perturbation approaches to the Boltzmann equations are known to fail to converge. These results suggest that studying of trapped gases in the far from ultracold regions may yield interesting results not described by classical hydrodynamics.
Previous approaches of emergent thermalization for condensed matter based on typical wavefunctions are extended to generate an intrinsically quantum theory of gases. Gases are fundamentally quantum objects at all temperatures, by virtue of rapid delocalization of their constituents. When there is a sufficiently broad spread in the energy of eigenstates, a well-defined temperature is shown to arise by photon production when the samples are optically thick. This produces a highly accurate approximation to the Planck distribution so that thermalization arises from the initial data as a consequence of purely quantum and unitary dynamics. These results are used as a foil for some common hydrodynamic theory of ultracold gases. It is suggested here that strong history dependence typically remains in these gases and so limits the validity of thermodynamics in their description. These problems are even more profound in the extension of hydrodynamics to such gases when they are optically thin, even when their internal energy is not low. We investigate rotation of elliptically trapped gases and consistency problems with deriving a local hydrodynamic approach. The presence of vorticity that is "hidden" from order parameter approaches is discussed along with some buoyancy intrinsically associated with vorticity that gives essential quantum corrections to gases in the regimes where standard perturbation approaches to the Boltzmann equations are known to fail to converge. These results suggest that studying of trapped gases in the far from ultracold regions may yield interesting results not described by classical hydrodynamics.
In the previous companion paper, we proposed a subclass of wavefunctions to describe macroscopic solids that resolved and extended the theory quantum measurement and gave a more specific treatment of quasiparticles. Here we extend these notions to thermalization of solids and gases and to gas state hydrodynamics. This gives a modification of the thermodynamic limit to justify the canonical averages for "typical wavefunctions" without the use of ensembles. The energetic cost of vorticity is contrasted in the classical and ultracold gas limits. From this perspective, we then examine the applicability of thermo and hydro to ultracold gases and compare with the implications of pure state evolution. We illustrate how the proposed quantum limits on viscosity could be reinterpreted in terms of Schrödinger induced evolution of the one-body density function but some history dependent measurable properties should still persist.
Hydrodynamics of gases in the classical domain are examined from the perspective that the gas has a well-defined wavefunction description at all times. Specifically, the internal energy and volume exclusion of decorrelated vortex structures are included so that quantum corrections and modifications to Navier-Stokes behavior can be derived. This leads to a small deviation in rigid body rotation for a cylindrically bound gas and the internal energy changes associated with vorticity give deviations in the Reynolds' transport theorem. Some macroscopic observable features arising from this include variations in the specific heat, an anisotropic correction to thermal conductivity and a variation in optical scattering as a function of the declination from the axis of local vorticity. The improvements in magneto-optical traps suggests some interesting experiments to be done in higher temperature regimes where they are not usually employed. It is argued that the finite lifetime of observed vortices in ultracold bosonic gases is only apparent and these volume excluding structures persist in generating angular momentum and pressure in the cloud in a non-imageable form.
Since the systems described by quantum fields are by definition extended, it is natural to think that in some limit they may reasonably well be approximated as fluids. This means that the state of the system is parameterized by a few locally well-defined fields such as temperature or energy density, obeying a set of hyperbolic equations of motion. A concrete example is the extensive use of fluid models to describe high-energy collisions [BelLan56, CarDuo73, CoFrSc74, Bjo83, CarZac83]. Our earlier derivation of quantum kinetic theory suggests a way to put this insight on a formal basis. Within its range of validity, the Boltzmann equation will drive the one-particle distribution function towards local thermal equilibrium. On scales much larger than the local thermalization scale, we expect to see hydrodynamical behavior [BeCoPa02]. This is, after all, the usual way of deriving hydrodynamics from kinetic theory [Hua87]. Beware, notwithstanding, that even at the level of classical kinetic theory there are still open questions regarding the cross-over from the kinetic to the hydro regime [KarGor02, KarGor03]. If we understand hydrodynamics as stated in the first paragraph of this chapter, then a system defined in terms of a quantum field may not have a hydrodynamic limit. This has been shown in [Elz02] for the case of a free Fermi field.
In this Thesis we will theoretically address some issues concerning the Physics of ultracold Fermi gases, all of them with experimental relevance. The field of ultracold gases, and more recently of ultracold Fermi gases, is gathering a lot of experimental and theoretical interest for two main reasons: the great control on the relevant parameters of the problem and the relative simplicity of the minimal theory which is able to correctly describe the system. Building upon this solid background, ultracold gases provided an ideal laboratory for testing more refined theories and also for addressing fundamental issues of quantum mechanics as well as for simulating more complex physical systems such as those encountered in condensed matter. Even if the effective hamiltonian of ultracold gases can be simple, due to the diluteness of the system and the low temperature, which imply low energy physics, the solution of the quantum mechanic equations governing the state of these systems is not always simple. For the static properties usually mean-field solutions exist or perturbative expansions can be produced in some regimes. However Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) techniques provide more accurate results especially in the strongly interacting regimes. For confined systems it is possible to use QMC only for a few particles, so that, for large number of particles, a fruitful combined use of Density Functional Theory (DFT) and QMC is necessary. The study of the dynamics of ultracold gases has received little attention with QMC techniques, due to the intrinsic computational difficulty of the many-body problem, so that general hydrodynamic equations are often used for studying the propagation of smoothly varying perturbations. In this Thesis we use QMC techniques for studying the problem of ferromagnetism in repulsive or effectively repulsive ultracold gases without a lattice and the problem of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer to Bose-Einstein-Condensation (BCS-BEC) crossover in two dimensions. We use DFT in the Local Density Approximation (LDA) for calculating the density profiles of ultracold Fermi gases in harmonic magneto-optical traps, starting from QMC equations of state. We study the propagation of first and second sound in ultracold Fermi gases in cylindrical geometry, using the hydrodynamic equations of superfluids.
Two-body inelastic collisions arising from chemical reactions are prevalent in ultracold fermionic and bosonic molecular gases. Although recent advancements have achieved quantum degeneracy in these systems, loss dynamics are typically modeled phenomenologically using rate equations that often assume thermalization during chemical reactions. In this study, we employ the inelastic quantum Boltzmann equation to analyze particle loss, temperature evolution, and momentum distributions in single-component Fermi gases from first principles. Our results demonstrate that the conventional particle-number rate equation accurately describes the dynamics in trapped systems but fails to capture the behavior in homogeneous systems. Notably, under pure p-wave inelastic collisions and zero elastic collisions, we find that systems prepared near or above quantum degeneracy remain in a thermal state, whereas systems initialized deep within degeneracy exhibit nonequilibrium dynamics. Our theoretical predictions align well with recent experimental observations in trapped systems, and our claim can be further verified in atomic systems with induced two-body loss in box potentials.
Hydrodynamization refers to the remarkably rapid process in relativistic heavy-ion collisions by which hydrodynamic descriptions become applicable. Following the observation of analogous behavior in ultracold one-dimensional (1D) Bose gases, hydrodynamization has been conjectured to be a universal dynamical phenomenon in quantum systems following high-energy quenches. Theoretical studies in this cold-atom setting have so far been restricted to quenches from ground states. Here we study how nonzero temperatures affect hydrodynamization. Specifically, using a homogeneous 1D gas of hard-core bosons, we explore how the initial temperature affects the timescales associated with hydrodynamization and prethermalization following a Bragg-pulse quench. We find that while the hydrodynamization coherence time remains unchanged, increasing temperature shortens both the damping time of the hydrodynamization oscillations and the prethermalization time. We argue that this is mainly the result of the broadening of the initial rapidity distribution, and introduce a nonzero-temperature dephasing time defined in terms of the extent of the rapidity distribution.