Some thermodynamic features of an assembly of a finite number of bosons trapped in a bounded harmonic potential are investigated. P–V isotherms are drawn for both the degenerate and the non-degenerate phases. At any temperature, the pressure is a decreasing function of volume, unlike the free Bose gas for which the pressure becomes independent of volume in the degenerate phase. At the absolute zero of temperature the quantum pressure for a spherical enclosure of radius r0 equal to aho, aho being the characteristic harmonic oscillator length, is found to be of order 10-10 Torr while for [Formula: see text] it is of order 10-12 Torr. The isothermal compressibility has a sharp drop near the critical point and becomes negligibly small for temperatures above the critical temperature, irrespective of the size of the trap. The coefficient of thermal expansion also shows a sudden drop at the critical temperature. The specific heat at constant pressure shows a peak and is well-defined in the degenerate phase, in contradistinction to the ideal Bose gas. Results recently derived by Singh on the basis of local equilibrium theory are found to be in good agreement with our numerical computations.
We study the thermodynamic behavior of an ideal gas of bosons trapped in a three-dimensional anisotropic harmonic-oscillator potential. The condensate fraction as well as the specific heat is calculated using the Euler-Maclaurin approximation. For a finite number of particles there is no phase transition, but there is a well-defined temperature at which the condensation starts. We also consider condensation in lower dimensions, and, for one-dimensional systems, we discuss the dependence of the condensate fraction and heat capacity on the ensemble used.
The onset of Bose-Einstein condensation in a sample of N atoms confined to harmonic traps is critically examined. The monotonic growth of the condensate fraction f and the nonmonotic variation of the specific heat C of the sample are studied in fine detail. While no temperature is truly critical, our analysis does provide a strong theoretical basis for recognizing a temperature
T∗, that has been identified and advocated by previous authors, as the transition temperature of the system. The specific-heat maximum
Tm (which happens to be another important ``marker'' in this transition), the value of the specific heat at
T=Tm, and the ``jump'' in the specific heat of the system when the number N becomes very large are all explicitly evaluated. Wherever comparison is possible, our analytical results are found to be in perfect agreement with the ones obtained numerically by Kirsten and Toms [Phys. Rev. A 54, 4188 (1996)] and by Haugerud, Haugest, and Ravndal [Phys. Lett. A 225, 18 (1997)].
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of an ideal gas is investigated, beyond the thermodynamic limit, for a finite number
N of particles trapped in a generic three-dimensional power-law potential. We derive an analytical expression for the condensation temperature
Tc in terms of a power series in ${x}_{0}={\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{0}/{k}_{B}{T}_{c}$, where ${\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{0}$ denotes the zero-point energy of the trapping potential. This expression, which applies in Cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical power-law traps, is given analytically at infinite order. It is also given numerically for specific potential shapes as an expansion in powers of
x0 up to the second order. We show that, for a harmonic trap, the well-known first-order shift of the critical temperature $\ensuremath{\Delta}{T}_{c}/{T}_{c}\ensuremath{\propto}{N}^{\ensuremath{-}1/3}$ is inaccurate when $N\ensuremath{\leqslant}{10}^{5}$, the next order (proportional to ${N}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$) being significant. We also show that finite-size effects on the condensation temperature cancel out in a cubic trapping potential, e.g., $V(r)\ensuremath{\propto}{r}^{3}$. Finally, we show that in a generic power-law potential of higher order, e.g., $V(r)\ensuremath{\propto}{r}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ with $\ensuremath{\alpha}>3$, the shift of the critical temperature becomes positive. This effect provides a large increase of
Tc for relatively small atom numbers. For instance, an increase of about $+$40% is expected with
104 atoms in a $V(r)\ensuremath{\propto}{r}^{12}$ trapping potential.
One can derive an analytic result for the issue of Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) in anisotropic 2D harmonic traps. We find that the number of uncondensed bosons is represented by an analytic function, which includes a series expansion of q-digamma functions in mathematics. One can utilize this analytic result to evaluate various thermodynamic functions of ideal bosons in 2D anisotropic harmonic traps. The first major discovery is that the internal energy of a finite number of ideal bosons is a monotonically increasing function of anisotropy parameter p. The second major discovery is that, when p≥0.5, the changing with temperature of the heat capacity of a finite number of ideal bosons possesses the maximum value, which happens at critical temperature Tc. The third major discovery is that, when 0.1≤p<0.5, the changing with temperature of the heat capacity of a finite number of ideal bosons possesses an inflection point, but when p<0.1, the inflection point disappears. The fourth major discovery is that, in the thermodynamic limit, at Tc and when p≥0.5, the heat capacity at constant number reveals a cusp singularity, which resembles the λ-transition of liquid helium-4. The fifth major discovery is that, in comparison to 2D isotropic harmonic traps (p=1), the singular peak of the specific heat becomes very gentle when p is lowered.