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Physical Review Letters

Fourth Statistical Ensemble for the Bose-Einstein Condensate

Patrick Navez, Dmitri Bitouk, Mariusz Gajda, Zbigniew Idziaszek, Kazimierz Rza̧żewski

Published Sep 8, 1997• 141 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with a fixed number of particles. On the basis of conventional statistical mechanics we introduce the, so called, Maxwell's demon ensemble, where only particle transfer (without energy exchange) is allowed. We show that this new ensemble can be used for the microcanonical description of the system. We apply our formalism to the case of BEC in a harmonic trap and give the analytic expressions for the ground state fluctuations. We compare these expressions with the exact numerical results obtained for relatively small condensates.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.79.1789

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We study the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with a fixed number of particles. On the basis of conventional statistical mechanics we introduce the, so called, Maxwell's demon ensemble, where only particle transfer (without energy exchange) is allowed. We show that this new ensemble can be used for the microcanonical description of the system. We apply our formalism to the case of BEC in a harmonic trap and give the analytic expressions for the ground state fluctuations. We compare these expressions with the exact numerical results obtained for relatively small condensates.
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We discuss the exact particle number counting statistics of degenerate ideal Bose gases in the microcanonical, canonical, and grand-canonical ensemble, respectively, for various trapping potentials. We then invoke the Maxwell's Demon ensemble [Navez et el., Phys. Rev. Lett. (1997)] and show that for large total number of particles the root-mean-square fluctuation of the condensate occupation scales n0 / [T=Tc] r N s with scaling exponents r = 3=2, s = 1=2 for the3D harmonic oscillator trapping potential, and r = 1,s= 2=3 for the 3D box. We derive an explicit expression for r and s in terms of spatial dimension D and spectral index sigma of the single-particle energy spectrum. Our predictions also apply to systems where Bose-Einstein condensation does not occur. We point out that the condensate fluctuations in the microcanonical and canonical ensemble respect the principle of thermodynamic equivalence.
After discussing the idea underlying the Maxwell's Demon ensemble, we employ this ensemble for calculating fluctuations of ideal Bose gas condensates in traps with power-law single-particle energy spectra. Two essentially different cases have to be distinguished. If the heat capacity is continuous at the condensation point, the fluctuations of the number of condensate particles vanish linearly with temperature, independent of the trap characteristics. In this case, microcanonical and canonical fluctuations are practically indistinguishable. If the heat capacity is discontinuous, the fluctuations vanish algebraically with temperature, with an exponent determined by the trap, and the micro-canonical fluctuations are lower than their canonical counterparts.
We study the ground state occupation number and its fluctuations for the Bose-Einstein condensate of trapped atoms using the microcanonical ensemble. The analytic formulas are obtained with the help of the saddle point method. We show that microcanonical fluctuations below the critical temperature tend to zero and scale with the number of particles as 1/N1/\sqrt{N}1/N​.
We analyze the general relation between canonical and grand canonical ensembles in the thermodynamic limit. We begin our discussion by deriving, with an alternative approach, some standard results first obtained by Kac and coworkers in the late 1970s. Then, motivated by the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of trapped gases with a fixed number of atoms, which is well described by the canonical ensemble and by the recent groundbreaking experimental realization of BEC with photons in a dye-filled optical microcavity under genuine grand canonical conditions, we apply our formalism to a system of non-interacting Bose particles confined in a two-dimensional harmonic trap. We discuss in detail the mathematical origin of the inequivalence of ensembles observed in the condensed phase, giving place to the so-called grand canonical catastrophe of density fluctuations. We also provide explicit analytical expressions for the internal energy and specific heat and compare them with available experimental data. For these quantities, we show the equivalence of ensembles in the thermodynamic limit.
In a recent paper [Int. J. Mod. Phys. B 14, 405 (2000)] we discussed the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in the framework of Tsallis’s nonextensive statistical mechanics. In particular, we studied an ideal gas of bosons in a confining harmonic potential. In this memoir we generalize our previous analysis by investigating an ideal Bose gas in a generic power-law external potential. We derive analytical formulas for the energy of the system, the BEC transition temperature and the condensed fraction. PACS numbers: 05.30-d; 03.75.Fi 1 Recently we analyzed the consequences of weak nonextensivity on Bose-Einstein Condensation for an ideal Bose gas 1 by using Tsallis’s nonextensive statistical mechanics (NSM). 2 From the nonextensive Bose-Einstein distribution 3−5 we derived the BEC transition temperature, the condensed fraction and the energy per particle in three different cases: the homogeneous gas, the gas in a harmonic trap and the relativistic homogenous gas. In this short contribution we generalize our previous results by considering the ideal Bose gas in a generic power-law potential. All the calculations are performed by assuming a D-dimensional space. The NSM predicts that, for an ideal quantum gas of identical bosons in the grand canonical ensemble, the weak nonextensivity formula of the average number of particles with energy ǫ is given by 〈n(ǫ)〉q = 1