Recent experiments have been moving ever closer to the goal of creating cold quantum-degenerate Bose gases in one and two dimensional systems. In this thesis we investigate such systems by adapting the mean-field theories used so successfully to describe Bose-Einstein condensates in the three dimensional case. We find that the key to describing the low dimensional systems lies in an accurate description of the interactions within those systems. In three dimensions the interactions may be well approximated by a simple form in which atoms are assumed to interact in a vacuum. Many-body effects on the scattering then lead to only a small perturbation. However, in one and two dimensions we find that the inclusion of many-body effects on the scattering is crucial, even for a first order calculation. We use a many-body T-matrix to describe the interactions, and develop a simple approximation in the zero-temperature limit that involves the off-shell two-body T-matrix evaluated at a shifted interaction energy. We therefore derive expressions for the off-shell two-body T-matrix in one, two, and three dimensions, and so find expressions for the coupling parameters which describe interactions in one and two dimensional Bose gases. These lead to interaction terms in the one and two dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equations which differ significantly from the three dimensional case. We present numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in both one and two dimensions, and in one dimension we find that the results are in agreement with exact results in the extreme limits of the interaction strength. We also investigate higher order theories in the one-dimensional case, with a view to describing the cross-over from a weakly-interacting Bose-Einstein condensate to a quasicondensate as the interactions become stronger. Finally, we study the Bogoliubov-de Gennes excitation spectrum for a one dimensional condensate containing solitons. We show that it has an anomalous mode with a negative energy, and that this represents the collective motion of the soliton relative to the background condensate. (author)
Recent experiments have been moving ever closer to the goal of creating cold quantum-degenerate Bose gases in one and two dimensional systems. In this thesis we investigate such systems by adapting the mean-field theories used so successfully to describe Bose-Einstein condensates in the three dimensional case. We find that the key to describing the low dimensional systems lies in an accurate description of the interactions within those systems. In three dimensions the interactions may be well approximated by a simple form in which atoms are assumed to interact in a vacuum. Many-body effects on the scattering then lead to only a small perturbation. However, in one and two dimensions we find that the inclusion of many-body effects on the scattering is crucial, even for a first order calculation. We use a many-body T-matrix to describe the interactions, and develop a simple approximation in the zero-temperature limit that involves the off-shell two-body T-matrix evaluated at a shifted interaction energy. We therefore derive expressions for the off-shell two-body T-matrix in one, two, and three dimensions, and so find expressions for the coupling parameters which describe interactions in one and two dimensional Bose gases. These lead to interaction terms in the one and two dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equations which differ significantly from the three dimensional case. We present numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in both one and two dimensions, and in one dimension we find that the results are in agreement with exact results in the extreme limits of the interaction strength. We also investigate higher order theories in the one-dimensional case, with a view to describing the cross-over from a weakly-interacting Bose-Einstein condensate to a quasicondensate as the interactions become stronger. Finally, we study the Bogoliubov-de Gennes excitation spectrum for a one dimensional condensate containing solitons. We show that it has an anomalous mode with a negative energy, and that this represents the collective motion of the soliton relative to the background condensate. (author)
We consider many-body effects on particle scattering in one-, two-, and three-dimensional (3D) Bose gases. We show that at T=0 these effects can be modeled by the simpler two-body T matrix evaluated off the energy shell. This is important in 1D and 2D because the two-body T matrix vanishes at zero energy and so mean-field effects on particle energies must be taken into account to obtain a self-consistent treatment of low-energy collisions. Using the off-shell two-body T matrix we obtain the energy and density dependence of the effective interaction in 1D and 2D and the appropriate Gross-Pitaevskii equations for these dimensions. Our results provide an alternative derivation of those of Kolomeisky and co-workers. We present numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a 2D condensate of hard-sphere bosons in a trap. We find that the interaction strength is much greater in 2D than for a 3D gas with the same hard-sphere radius. The Thomas-Fermi regime is, therefore, approached at lower condensate populations and the energy required to create vortices is lowered compared to the 3D case.
In this thesis we study the physics of quantum many-body systems confined to one-dimensional geometries. The work was motivated by the recent success of experimentalists in developing atom traps, capable of restricting the motion of the individual atoms to a single spatial dimension. Specifically, we look at aspects of the one-dimensional Bose gas including; excitation spectrum, correlation functions, and dynamical behaviour. In Chapter \ref{ch:excitation1D} we consider the Lieb-Liniger model of interacting bosons in one-dimension. We numerically solve the equations arising from the Bethe ansatz solution for the exact many-body wave function in a finite-size system of up to twenty particles for attractive interactions. We discuss novel features of the solutions, including deviations from the well-known string solutions due to finite size effects. We present excited state string solutions in the limit of strong interactions and discuss their physical interpretation, as well as the characteristics of the quantum phase transition that occurs as a function of interaction strength in the mean-field limit. Our results are compared to those obtained via exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in a truncated basis. In Chapter \ref{ch:g2} we analytically calculate the spatial nonlocal pair correlation function for an interacting uniform one dimensional Bose gas at finite temperature and propose an experimental method to measure nonlocal correlations. Our results span six different physical realms, including the weakly and strongly interacting regimes. We show explicitly that the characteristic correlation lengths are given by one of four length scales: the thermal de Broglie wavelength, the mean interparticle separation, the healing length, or the phase coherence length. In all regimes, we identify the profound role of interactions and find that under certain conditions the pair correlation may develop a global maximum at a finite interparticle separation due to the competition between repulsive interactions and thermal effects. In Chapter \ref{ch:casimirdrag} we study the drag force below the critical velocity for obstacles moving in a superfluid. The absence of drag is well established in the context of the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii theory. We calculate the next order correction due to quantum and thermal fluctuations and find a non-zero force acting on a delta-function impurity moving through a quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate at all subcritical velocities and at all temperatures. The force occurs due to an imbalance in the Doppler shifts of reflected quantum fluctuations from either side of the impurity. Our calculation is based on a consistent extension of Bogoliubov theory to second order in the interaction strength, and finds new analytic solutions to the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations for a gray soliton. In Chapter \ref{ch:solitons} we study the effect of quantum noise on the stability of a soliton. We find the soliton solutions exactly define the reflectionless potentials of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. This results in complete stability of the solitons in a purely one dimensional system. We look at the modifications to the density profile of a black soliton due to quantum fluctuations.
We investigate the properties of the one-dimensional Bose gas at zero temperature, for which exact results exist for some model systems. We treat the interactions between particles in the gas with an approximate form of the many-body T-matrix, and find a form of Gross-Pitaevskii equation valid in 1D. The results presented agree with the exact models in both the weakly and strongly interacting limits, and interpolate smoothly between them. We also investigate the use of mean-field treatments of trapped BECs to describe the 1D system in the strongly interacting limit. We find that the use of the many-body T-matrix to describe interactions leads to qualitative agreement with the exact models for some physical quantities. We indicate how the standard mean-field treatments need to be modified to extend and improve the agreement.
This thesis is devoted to the rigorous study of dilute Bose gases with two-body and three-body interactions at zero temperature in two and three dimensions. Bose gases are many-body quantum systems composed of bosons, which notably do not obey the Pauli exclusion principle. As a consequence, at extremely low temperatures, a macroscopic fraction of the particles can occupy the same one-body quantum state. This phenomenon, known as Bose–Einstein condensation, was predicted in the 1920s by Bose and Einstein for noninteracting Bose gases, and first realised experimentally by the groups of Cornell and Wieman, and Ketterle, earning them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2001. However, proving the occurrence of Bose–Einstein condensation in general interacting bosonic systems remains a major open problem and constitutes a central theme in this thesis. Another important property of bosonic matter is that it is generally more unstable than fermionic matter. In particular, for systems interacting via the Coulomb force, the Pauli exclusion principle is essential for explaining the stability of the second kind, which states that the energy and volume scale linearly with the number of particles. Nonetheless, bosonic systems with attractive but less singular interactions can also be stable, and the rigorous proof of this fact forms a second focus of this thesis. In three dimensions, we consider predominantly repulsive interactions. Firstly, we prove a leading order upper bound on the thermodynamic ground state energy of Bose gases with hard-core three-body interactions, which matches an existing lower bound. In addition, we obtain a simpler proof for integrable potentials. Secondly, we derive the leading order of the thermodynamic ground state energy of Bose gases with combined two-body and three-body interactions. More specifically, we show that, at the leading order, the ground state energy is entirely characterised by the scattering length of the two-body potential and the scattering hypervolume of the three-body potential. Thirdly, we study the time evolution of Bose–Einstein condensates with three-body interactions in the so-called Gross–Pitaevskii regime. We show that Bose–Einstein condensation is preserved under many-body evolution and that the condensate wavefunction evolves according to the quintic Gross–Pitaevskii equation. In particular, we show that the effective coupling constant is universal in the sense that it depends only on the scattering hypervolume of the interaction potential. As a by-product of our proof, we derive a stability of the second kind result for Bose gases with attractive two-body interactions and repulsive three-body interactions. In two dimensions, we consider trapped Bose gases with mean-field-type interactions, including the purely attractive case. We prove the stability of the second kind of the system and the convergence of the ground state energy per particle to that of a non-linear Schrödinger energy functional. As a consequence of the stability of the second kind, we also obtain Bose–Einstein condensation for the many-body ground states.
Bose-Einstein condensates have been experimentally realized in cold Bose gases for the first time in 1995.This discovery has renewed interest in the theory of interacting Bose gases; however, the mathematical understanding of Bose-Einstein condensation is still incomplete.In this thesis we derive effective theories for the dynamical and spectral properties of Bose gases.Our theoretical description is based on scaling regimes where the number of particles N becomes large and the two-body interaction potential scales as N 3β-1 V (N β •), for a fixed β ∈ (0, 1].The case β = 1 is known as Gross-Pitaevskii regime.Our first result concerns the time evolution of Bose-Einstein condensates after the trapping potential is removed.In previous works, it was shown that the many-body dynamics can be approximated by a one-body nonlinear Schrödinger equation at the level of reduced density matrices.We provide a more precise approximation of the time evolution: in a second-quantized setting, we construct a unitary effective dynamics, which, in the limit of large N , approximates the fully evolved state in Fock space norm.Our result comes with an explicit bound on the rate of convergence.It is valid for β < 1.Our second result addresses the properties of the ground state wave function.It has been shown before that the ground state wave function exhibits condensation in the limit N → ∞, i.e. the one-particle density matrix associated to the ground state approaches a projection.We prove the optimal bound for the convergence rate, for a translation invariant system.To do this, we estimate uniformly in N the number of excited particles.This result is valid for β = 1.Our last result concerns the ground state energy and the excitation spectrum of the translation invariant system.We prove the validity of Bogoliubov theory; this allows us to compute the ground state energy and the low-lying excitation spectrum up to an error that vanishes for large N .This result holds for β < 1.This thesis is based on the articles [11], [9] and [10].i
In this thesis we develop a gapless theory of BEC which can be applied to both trapped and homogeneous gases at zero and finite temperature. The starting point for the theory is the second quantized, many-body Hamiltonian for a system of structureless bosons with pairwise interactions. A number conserving approach is used to rewrite this Hamiltonian in a form which is approximately quadratic with higher order cubic and quartic terms. The quadratic part of the Hamiltonian can be diagonalized exactly by transforming to a quasiparticle basis, while requiring that the condensate satisfy the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The non-quadratic terms are assumed to have a small effect and are dealt with using first and second order perturbation theory. The conventional treatment of these terms, based on factorization approximations, is shown to be inconsistent. Infra-red divergences can appear in individual terms of the perturbation expansion, but we show analytically that the total contribution beyond quadratic order is finite. The resulting excitation spectrum is gapless and the energy shifts are small for a dilute gas away from the critical region, justifying the use of perturbation theory. Ultra-violet divergences can appear if a contact potential is used to describe particle interactions. We show that the use of this potential as an approximation to the two-body T-matrix leads naturally to a high-energy renormalization. The theory developed in this thesis is therefore well-defined at both low and high energy and provides a systematic description of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases. It can be used to calculate the energies and decay rates of the excitations of the system at temperatures approaching the phase transition. We present analytical results for these quantities in the homogeneous limit and describe how they can be calculated numerically for trapped gases. (author)