Comment on “Particle-number-conserving Bogoliubov method which demonstrates the validity of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a highly condensed Bose gas”
A recent paper of Gardiner [Phys. Rev. A 56, 1414 (1997)] introduces a particle-number-conserving Bogoliubov method for the excitation spectrum of a Bose-condensed gas, for use in theories of recently experimentally produced trapped atomic Bose condensates. Gardiner's approach is compared and contrasted with the 1959 Girardeau-Arnowitt theory [Phys. Rev. 113, 755 (1959)], to which it is closely related and which is also fully number conserving. The number-conserving Bogoliubov quasiparticle operators of the Girardeau-Arnowitt theory satisfy Bose commutation relations exactly so long as states with the condensate totally depleted are neglected, whereas those of Gardiner satisfy Bose commutation relations only in an approximation that deteriorates progressively as the condensate is depleted.
A recent paper of Gardiner [Phys. Rev. A 56, 1414 (1997)] introduces a particle-number-conserving Bogoliubov method for the excitation spectrum of a Bose-condensed gas, for use in theories of recently experimentally produced trapped atomic Bose condensates. Gardiner's approach is compared and contrasted with the 1959 Girardeau-Arnowitt theory [Phys. Rev. 113, 755 (1959)], to which it is closely related and which is also fully number conserving. The number-conserving Bogoliubov quasiparticle operators of the Girardeau-Arnowitt theory satisfy Bose commutation relations exactly so long as states with the condensate totally depleted are neglected, whereas those of Gardiner satisfy Bose commutation relations only in an approximation that deteriorates progressively as the condensate is depleted.
The Bogoliubov method for the excitation spectrum of a Bose-condensed gas is generalized to apply to a gas with an exact large number N of particles. This generalization yields a description of the Schr\"odinger picture field operators as the product of an annihilation operator A for the total number of particles and the sum of a ``condensate wave function'' $\ensuremath{\xi}(\mathbf{x})$ and a phonon field operator $\ensuremath{\chi}(\mathbf{x})$ in the form $\ensuremath{\psi}(\mathbf{x})\ensuremath{\approx}A{\ensuremath{\xi}(\mathbf{x})+\ensuremath{\chi}(\mathbf{x})/\sqrt{N}}$ when the field operator acts on the N particle subspace. It is then possible to expand the Hamiltonian in decreasing powers of N, and thus obtain solutions for eigenvalues and eigenstates as an asymptotic expansion of the same kind. It is also possible to compute all matrix elements of field operators between states of different N. The excitation spectrum can be obtained by essentially the same method as Bogoliubov only if $\ensuremath{\xi}(\mathbf{x})$ is a solution of the time-independent Gross-Pitaevskii equation for N particles and any chemical potential $\ensuremath{\mu}$, which yields a valid and stable solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The treatment within a subspace of fixed N is identical in form to that usually used, but the interpretation of the operators is slightly different. A time-dependent generalization is then made, yielding an asymptotic expansion in decreasing powers of N for the equations of motion. In this expansion the condensate wave function has the time-dependent form $\ensuremath{\xi}(\mathbf{x},t)$, and the condition for the validity of the expansion is that $\ensuremath{\xi}(\mathbf{x},t)$ satisfies the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation $\ensuremath{\partial}\ensuremath{\xi}/\ensuremath{\partial}t=\ensuremath{-}({\ensuremath{\Elzxh}}^{2}/2m){\ensuremath{\nabla}}^{2}\ensuremath{\xi}+V\ensuremath{\xi}+Nu|\ensuremath{\xi}{|}^{2}\ensuremath{\xi}$. The physics is then described in a kind of interaction picture, called the condensate picture, in which the phonon operator can be expressed as $\ensuremath{\chi}(\mathbf{x},t)={\ensuremath{\sum}}_{k}{\ensuremath{\xi}}_{k}(\mathbf{x},t){\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{k},$ where the operators ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{k}$ are time-independent annihilation operators, and the state vector has a time evolution described by a Schr\"odinger equation in which the Hamiltonian is a time-dependent quadratic form in the phonon creation and annihilation operators, whose coefficients are explicitly determined in terms of the time-dependent condensate wave function $\ensuremath{\xi}(\mathbf{x},t)$.
We describe a number-conserving approach to the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensed dilute atomic gases. This builds upon the works of Gardiner [Phys. Rev. A 56, 1414 (1997)] and Castin and Dum [Phys. Rev. A 57, 3008 (1998)]. We consider what is effectively an expansion in powers of the ratio of noncondensate to condensate particle numbers, rather than inverse powers of the total number of particles. This requires the number of condensate particles to be a majority, but not necessarily almost equal to the total number of particles in the system. We argue that a second-order treatment of the relevant dynamical equations of motion is the minimum order necessary to provide consistent coupled condensate and noncondensate number dynamics for a finite total number of particles, and show that such a second-order treatment is provided by a suitably generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation, coupled to the Castin-Dum number-conserving formulation of the Bogoliubov--de Gennes equations. The necessary equations of motion can be generated from an approximate third-order Hamiltonian, which effectively reduces to second order in the steady state. Such a treatment as described here is suitable for dynamics occurring at finite temperature, where there is a significant noncondensate fraction from the outset, or dynamics leading to dynamical instabilities, where depletion of the condensate can also lead to a significant noncondensate fraction, even if the noncondensate fraction is initially negligible.
We consider the Bogoliubov vacuum state in the number-conserving Bogoliubov theory proposed by Castin and Dum [Phys. Rev. A 57 , 3008 (1998)]. We show that, in the particle representation, the vacuum can be written in a simple diagonal form. The vacuum state can describe the stationary N -particle ground state of a condensate in a trap, but it can also represent a dynamical state when, for example, a Bose-Einstein condensate initially prepared in the stationary ground state is subject to a time-dependent perturbation. In both cases the diagonal form of the Bogoliubov vacuum can be obtained by basically diagonalizing the reduced single-particle density matrix of the vacuum. We compare N -body states obtained within the Bogoliubov theory with the exact ground states in a 3-site Bose-Hubbard model. In this example, the Bogoliubov theory fails to accurately describe the stationary ground state in the limit when N → ∞ but a small fraction of depleted particles is kept constant.
We analyze the equilibrium properties of a weakly interacting, trapped quasi-one-dimensional Bose gas at finite temperatures and compare different theoretical approaches. We focus in particular on two stochastic theories: a number-conserving Bogoliubov (NCB) approach and a stochastic Gross-Pitaevskii equation (SGPE) that have been extensively used in numerical simulations. Equilibrium properties like density profiles, correlation functions, and the condensate statistics are compared to predictions based upon a number of alternative theories. We find that due to thermal phase fluctuations, and the corresponding condensate depletion, the NCB approach loses its validity at relatively low temperatures. This can be attributed to the change in the Bogoliubov spectrum, as the condensate gets thermally depleted, and to large fluctuations beyond perturbation theory. Although the two stochastic theories are built on different thermodynamic ensembles (NCB, canonical; SGPE, grand-canonical), they yield the correct condensate statistics in a large Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) (strong enough particle interactions). For smaller systems, the SGPE results are prone to anomalously large number fluctuations, well known for the grand-canonical, ideal Bose gas. Based on the comparison of the above theories to the modified Popov approach, we propose a simple procedure for approximately extracting the Penrose-Onsager condensate from first- and second-order correlation functions that is both computationally convenient and of potential use to experimentalists. This also clarifies the link between condensate and quasicondensate in the Popov theory of low-dimensional systems.
We study the truncated Wigner method applied to a weakly interacting spinless Bose-condensed gas which is perturbed away from thermal equilibrium by a time-dependent external potential. The principle of the method is to generate an ensemble of classical fields ψ( r ) which samples the Wigner quasi-distribution function of the initial thermal equilibrium density operator of the gas, and then to evolve each classical field with the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. In the first part of the paper we improve the sampling technique over our previous work (Sinatra et al 2000 J. Mod. Opt. 47 2629–44) and we test its accuracy against the exactly solvable model of the ideal Bose gas. In the second part of the paper we investigate the conditions of validity of the truncated Wigner method. For short evolution times it is known that the time-dependent Bogoliubov approximation is valid for almost pure condensates. The requirement that the truncated Wigner method reproduces the Bogoliubov prediction leads to the constraint that the number of field modes in the Wigner simulation must be smaller than the number of particles in the gas. For longer evolution times the nonlinear dynamics of the noncondensed modes of the field plays an important role. To demonstrate this we analyse the case of a three-dimensional spatially homogeneous Bose-condensed gas and we test the ability of the truncated Wigner method to correctly reproduce the Beliaev–Landau damping of an excitation of the condensate. We have identified the mechanism which limits the validity of the truncated Wigner method: the initial ensemble of classical fields, driven by the time-dependent Gross–Pitaevskii equation, thermalizes to a classical field distribution at a temperature T class which is larger than the initial temperature T of the quantum gas. When T class significantly exceeds T a spurious damping is observed in the Wigner simulation. This leads to the second validity condition for the truncated Wigner method, T class − T ≪ T , which requires that the maximum energy max of the Bogoliubov modes in the simulation does not exceed a few k B T .
We demonstrate that the time-dependent projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) derived earlier [M. J. Davis, R. J. Ballagh, and K. Burnett, J. Phys. B 34, 4487 (2001)] can represent the highly occupied modes of a homogeneous, partially-condensed Bose gas. Contrary to the often held belief that the GPE is valid only at zero temperature, we find that this equation will evolve randomized initial wave functions to a state describing thermal equilibrium. In the case of small interaction strengths or low temperatures, our numerical results can be compared to the predictions of Bogoliubov theory and its perturbative extensions. This demonstrates the validity of the GPE in these limits and allows us to assign a temperature to the simulations unambiguously. However, the GPE method is nonperturbative, and we believe it can be used to describe the thermal properties of a Bose gas even when Bogoliubov theory fails. We suggest a different technique to measure the temperature of our simulations in these circumstances. Using this approach we determine the dependence of the condensate fraction and specific heat on temperature for several interaction strengths, and observe the appearance of vortex networks. Interesting behavior near the critical point is observed and discussed.