A recently proved theorem of statistical physics states that a one- or two-dimensional Bose liquid in homogeneous thermodynamic equilibrium cannot undergo Bose-Einstein condensation. The theorem does not apply to inhomogeneous liquids. This is shown by considering the ideal Bose liquid (i) in the presence of a gravitational field and (ii) in rotational motion. The existence of well-defined one- and two-dimensional phase transitions with Bose-Einstein condensation is proved by these explicit examples.
A recently proved theorem of statistical physics states that a one- or two-dimensional Bose liquid in homogeneous thermodynamic equilibrium cannot undergo Bose-Einstein condensation. The theorem does not apply to inhomogeneous liquids. This is shown by considering the ideal Bose liquid (i) in the presence of a gravitational field and (ii) in rotational motion. The existence of well-defined one- and two-dimensional phase transitions with Bose-Einstein condensation is proved by these explicit examples.
The two-dimensional ideal Bose gas in a circular container rotating at fixed rim velocity has some unexpected and instructive properties. In the thermodynamic limit, the system undergoes a phase transition, as argued by Widom. We find that the transition is a type of Bose-Einstein condensation, in which, however, infinitely many one-particle states are macroscopically occupied. The system evades general theorems forbidding Bose-Einstein condensation in two dimensions, not merely because it is inhomogeneous, as Widom suggests, but because the equilibrium density is unbounded near the circumference in the thermodynamic limit. We point out that, independently of the particular model, Bose-Einstein condensation into any single-particle state (or states), spatially uniform or nonuniform, is forbidden in one and two dimensions provided only that (a) the Hamiltonian is real, and (b) the equilibrium density is everywhere bounded in the thermodynamic limit.
Current experiments on atomic gases in highly anisotropic traps present the opportunity to study in detail the low temperature phases of two-dimensional inhomogeneous systems. Although, in an ideal gas, the trapping potential favors Bose-Einstein condensation at finite temperature, interactions tend to destabilize the condensate, leading to a superfluid Kosterlitz-Thouless-Berezinskii phase with a finite superfluid mass density but no long-range order, as in homogeneous fluids. The transition in homogeneous systems is conveniently described in terms of dissociation of topological defects (vortex-antivortex pairs). However, trapped two-dimensional gases are more directly approached by generalizing the microscopic theory of the homogeneous gas. In this paper, we first derive, via a diagrammatic expansion, the scaling structure near the phase transition in a homogeneous system, and then study the effects of a trapping potential in the local density approximation. We find that a weakly interacting trapped gas undergoes a Kosterlitz-Thouless-Berezinskii transition from the normal state at a temperature slightly below the Bose-Einstein transition temperature of the ideal gas. The characteristic finite superfluid mass density of a homogeneous system just below the transition becomes strongly suppressed in a trapped gas.
The thermodynamic properties of an ideal gas of bosons moving freely within layered planes and having a finite amplitude for jumping between neighbouring planes, are derived. As long as this coupling is non-zero, the system becomes effectively two-dimensional at sufficiently high temperatures. At a correspondingly low temperature it undergoes a Bose-Einstein transition into a condensed phase as in three dimensions. Below the critical temperature the specific heat is a universal function of only one dimensionless system variable. The phase transition becomes weaker as the coupling between the planes decreases and eventually disappears when the planes decouple.
The Bose-Einstein condensation mechanism is shown to be capable of accounting for the existence of separate hydrodynamic velocity fields for the normal and the superfluid, provided suitable assumptions are made with regard to the single-particle energy spectrum. We consider the effect on the microcanonical gas distribution of imposing a nonzero value of the total momentum P. For an ordinary gas the effect is trivial, the whole distribution being merely shifted in momentum space. However, in the case of a degenerate Bose gas whose single-particle energy spectrum has a sharp minimum (gap or cusp), only the excited part of the gas (normal fluid) participates in the imposed motion, the condensate (superfluid) remaining "frozen" in momentum space. This rigidity of the condensate in momentum space plays the same role as the rigidity of the superelectrons on imposition of a magnetic field in the London theory of superconductivity. P acts as an additional thermodynamic variable, states with P \ensuremath{\ne} 0 being macroscopically metastable and corresponding to the existence of a relative velocity between normal and superfluid. The basic hydrodynamic assumption of the two-fluid model is thus reduced to an assumption concerning the form of an effective single-particle energy spectrum, and the parallelism between the theories of superconductivity and superfluidity is clearly exhibited. The present theory permits, in particular, the introduction of the mathematical form of Landau's phonon and "roton" spectra within the framework of the Bose-Einstein condensation picture. The statistical-thermodynamic formulas are derived and are shown to lead to characteristic two-fluid equations derived previously from a variational principle.
The fact that two-dimensional interacting trapped systems do not undergo Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) in the thermodynamic limit, though rigorously proved, is somewhat mysterious because all relevant limiting cases (zero temperature, small atom numbers, noninteracting particles) suggest otherwise. We study the possibility of condensation in finite trapped two-dimensional systems. We first consider the ideal gas, which incorporates the inhomogeneity and finite size of experimental systems and can be solved exactly. A semiclassical self-consistent approximation gives us a feel for the temperature scales; diagonalization of the one-body density matrix confirms that the condensation is into a single state. We squeeze a three-dimensional system and see how it crosses over into two dimensions. Mean-field theory, our main tool for the study of interacting systems, prescribes coupled equations for the condensate and the thermal cloud: the condensate receives a full quantum-mechanical treatment, while the noncondensate is described by different schemes of varying sophistication. We analyze the T = 0 case and its approach to the thermodynamic limit, finding a criterion for the dimensionality crossover and obtaining the coupling constant of the two-dimensional system that results from squeezing a three-dimensional trap. We next apply a semiclassical Hartree-Fock approximation to purely two-dimensional finite gases and find that they can be described either with or without a condensate; this continues to be true in the thermodynamic limit. The condensed solutions have a lower free energy at all temperatures but neglect the presence of phonons within the system and cease to exist when we allow for this possibility. The uncondensed solutions, in turn, are valid under a more rigorous scheme but have consistency problems of their own. Path-integral Monte Carlo simulations provide an essentially exact description of finite interacting gases and enable us to study highly anisotropic systems at finite temperature. We find that our two-dimensional Hartree-Fock solutions accurately mimic the surface density profile and predict the condensate fraction of these systems; the equivalent interaction parameter is smaller than that dictated by the T = 0 analysis. We conclude that, in two-dimensional isotropic finite trapped systems and in highly compressed three-dimensional gases, there is a phenomenon resembling a condensation into a single state.