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Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Wigner distribution function for a harmonically trapped gas of ideal fermions and bosons at arbitrary temperature and dimensionality

Brandon P. van Zyl

Published Jul 18, 2012• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a new, simple closed form expression for the exact Wigner function of an ideal gas of harmonically trapped fermions or bosons at arbitrary temperature and dimensionality. One of the primary advantages of our expression is that it provides a clean separation of the spatial and momentum variables, which can significantly simplify analytical calculations involving the Wigner function. Our analysis is based on the explicit Fourier transform of the exact first-order density matrix, which affords an exceedingly simple derivation of the Wigner function. We demonstrate the utility of our approach by presenting several analytical results which may be trivially derived from the Wigner function, but otherwise require more involved calculations. We also examine the temperature and dimensionality dependence of the Fermi Wigner function in detail, thereby pointing out some subtle issues regarding the applicability of the Thomas–Fermi approximation to the Wigner function in the limit of a 'macroscopic' number of particles, and finite-temperatures.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8113/45/31/315302

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We present a new, simple closed form expression for the exact Wigner function of an ideal gas of harmonically trapped fermions or bosons at arbitrary temperature and dimensionality. One of the primary advantages of our expression is that it provides a clean separation of the spatial and momentum variables, which can significantly simplify analytical calculations involving the Wigner function. Our analysis is based on the explicit Fourier transform of the exact first-order density matrix, which affords an exceedingly simple derivation of the Wigner function. We demonstrate the utility of our approach by presenting several analytical results which may be trivially derived from the Wigner function, but otherwise require more involved calculations. We also examine the temperature and dimensionality dependence of the Fermi Wigner function in detail, thereby pointing out some subtle issues regarding the applicability of the Thomas–Fermi approximation to the Wigner function in the limit of a 'macroscopic' number of particles, and finite-temperatures.
We present a closed-form expression for the finite temperature first-order density matrix of an isotropic harmonically trapped ideal Fermi gas in any dimension. This constitutes a much sought after generalization of the recent results in the literature, where analytical expressions have been limited to quantities derived from the diagonal first-order density matrix. We compare our results with the Thomas-Fermi approximation (TFA) and demonstrate numerically that the TFA provides an excellent description of the first-order density matrix in the large-NNN limit. As an interesting application, we derive a closed-form expression for the finite temperature Hartree-Fock exchange energy of a two-dimensional (2D) parabolically confined quantum dot. We numerically test this result against the 2D TF exchange functional, and comment on the applicability of the local-density approximation to the exchange energy of an inhomogeneous 2D Fermi gas.
We present closed analytical expressions for the particle and kinetic-energy spatial densities at finite temperatures for a system of noninteracting fermions (bosons) trapped in a d-dimensional harmonic-oscillator potential. For d=2d=2d=2 and 3,3,3, exact expressions for the N-particle densities are used to calculate perturbatively the temperature dependence of the splittings of the energy levels in a given shell due to a very weak interparticle interaction in a dilute Fermi gas. In two dimensions, we obtain analytically the surprising result that the l degeneracy in a harmonic-oscillator shell is not lifted in the lowest order even when the exact, rather than the Thomas-Fermi expression for the particle density is used. We also demonstrate rigorously (in two dimensions) the reduction of the exact zero-temperature fermionic expressions to the Thomas-Fermi form in the large-N limit.
We investigate the particle and kinetic energy densities of harmonically trapped fermion gases at zero temperature in arbitrary dimensions. We derive differential equations connecting these densities, which so far have been proved only in one or two dimensions, and give other interesting relations involving several densities or the particle density alone. We show that in the asymptotic limit of large particle numbers, the densities go over into the semi-classical Thomas–Fermi (TF) densities. Hereby the Fermi energy to be used in the TF densities is uniquely identified. We derive an analytical expansion for the remaining oscillating parts and obtain very simple closed forms for the leading-order oscillating densities. Finally, we show that the simple TF functional relation τ TF [ρ] between kinetic and particle densities is also fulfilled for the asymptotic quantum densities τ( r ) and ρ( r ) including their leading-order oscillating terms.
Closed form analytical expressions are obtained for the Wigner transform of the Bloch density matrix and for the Wigner phase-space density of a two-dimensional harmonically trapped charged quantum gas in a uniform magnetic field of arbitrary strength, at zero and nonzero temperatures. An exact analytic expression is also obtained for the autocorrelation function. The strong magnetic field case, where only few Landau levels are occupied, is also examined, and useful approximate expressions for the spatial and momentum densities are given.
We investigate the particle and kinetic energy densities of harmonically trapped fermion gases at zero temperature in arbitrary dimensions. We derive differential equations connecting these densities, which so far have been proved only in one or two dimensions, and give other interesting relations involving several densities or the particle density alone. We show that in the asymptotic limit of large particle numbers, the densities go over into the semi-classical Thomas-Fermi (TF) densities. Hereby the Fermi energy to be used in the TF densities is uniquely identified. We derive an analytical expansion for the remaining oscillating parts and obtain very simple closed forms for the leading-order oscillating densities. Finally, we show that the simple TF functional relation tau(TF)[rho] between kinetic and particle densities is also fulfilled for the asymptotic quantum densities tau(r) and rho(r) including their leading-order oscillating terms.
Abstract We study the mean-field phase-space distribution of the ground state of an anisotropic, harmonically trapped Bose–Einstein condensate at zero temperature. First, we derive the Fourier transform of the ground-state wave function in the Thomas–Fermi limit in d dimensions. Second, we obtain analytical approximations for the Thomas–Fermi Wigner function in one and three dimensions with a factorization ansatz of the coherence function. These approximate expressions are compared with exact numerical simulations of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation.