The diffusion Monte Carlo method is applied to describe a trapped atomic Bose-Einstein condensate at zero temperature, fully quantum mechanically and nonperturbatively. For low densities, ${n(0)a}^{3}<~2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$
[n(0), peak density; a, s-wave scattering length], our calculations confirm that the exact ground-state energy for a sum of two-body interactions depends to a good approximation on only the atomic-physics parameter a, and no other details of the two-body model potential. Corrections to the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii energy range from being essentially negligible to about 20% for
N=2−−50 particles in the trap with positive s-wave scattering length
a=100−−10000a.u. Our numerical calculations confirm that inclusion of an additional effective potential term in the mean-field equation, which accounts for quantum fluctuations [see, e.g., E. Braaten and A. Nieto, Phys. Rev. B 56, 14 745 (1997)], leads to a greatly improved description of trapped Bose gases.
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.
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 investigate Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) containing a large number of bosonic atoms interacting via a finite-range semirealistic interatomic interaction. Ground state properties for an increasing number of atoms in the condensate have been calculated using a modification of the potential harmonic expansion method (including a short range correlation function in the expansion basis) to solve the many-body Schr\"odinger equation. An improved numerical algorithm for the calculation of the potential matrix elements permits us to have up to 14 000 atoms in the condensate. Although our approach is approximate and justified for dilute condensates, our results agree well with available diffusion Monte Carlo results for the same case. The ground state energies also agree well with those by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation method for up to 100 particles in the trap and become gradually larger than the latter (up to 5% for 14 000 atoms). The difference is attributed to the effects of finite range interatomic interaction and two-body correlations. Our approach presents a clear physical picture of the condensate, being computationally economical at the same time.
The stability of trapped interacting bosons with attractive interactions is studied using an approximate many-body calculation. Instead of using the traditional hyperspherical harmonics expansion method we prescribe a potential harmonics expansion method (PHEM). The justification of the use of PHEM in connection with dilute condensates is presented. The choice of a correlation function is justified as it correctly reproduces the short-range two-body correlation in the wavefunction as also the correct value of the s -wave scattering length ( a s ). Applications to 7 Li and 85 Rb condensates with the realistic van der Waals interaction give good agreement with the Rice and JILA experiments, respectively. The JILA experiment used controlled collapse of the 85 Rb condensate for different values of a s . Our calculations agree with the experimental results within the experimental error bars.
We formulate a quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method for calculating the ground state of many-boson systems. The method is based on a field-theoretical approach, and is closely related to existing fermion auxiliary-field QMC methods which are applied in several fields of physics. The ground-state projection is implemented as a branching random walk in the space of permanents consisting of identical single-particle orbitals. Any single-particle basis can be used, and the method is in principle exact. We apply this method to an atomic Bose gas, where the atoms interact via an attractive or repulsive contact two-body potential parametrized by the s-wave scattering length. We choose as the single-particle basis a real-space grid. We compare with exact results in small systems, and arbitrarily-sized systems of untrapped bosons with attractive interactions in one dimension, where analytical solutions exist. Our method provides a way to systematically improve upon the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) method while using the same framework, capturing interaction and correlation effects with a stochastic, coherent ensemble of non-interacting solutions. to study the role of many-body correlations in the ground state, we examine the properties of the gas, such as the energetics, condensate fraction, and the density and momentum distributions as a function of the number of particles and the scattering length, both in the homogenous and trapped gases. Results are presented for systems with up to 1000 bosons. Comparing our results to the mean-field GP results, we find significant departure from mean field at large positive scattering lengths. The many-body correlations tend to increase the kinetic energy and reduce the interaction energy compared to GP. In the trapped gases, this results in a qualitatively different behavior as a function of the scattering length. Possible experimental observation is discussed.