Bosons in a random potential: condensation and screening in a dense limit
Derek K. K. Lee, J M F Gunn
The authors demonstrate that an extended Bose condensate can be stable in a random potential for a suitable weak-repulsive limit of a dense Bose gas, even though the non-interacting case is pathological. The condensate exists primarily because the interactions allow screening of the random potential. This may happen even when the chemical potential is in the Lifshitz tails of the single-particle case. Indeed, the authors argue that there are no Lifshitz tail states in their dense but weakly-interacting system. Using a number-phase representation, they calculate the increase in the depletion of the condensate with increasing randomness (at fixed density) which indicates the eventual destruction of the condensed phase-perhaps to a localized phase. The physical picture discussed should be relevant to the understanding of helium thin films.
Journal of Physics Condensed Matter•Sep 24, 1990•47 citations