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Progress of Theoretical Physics

Qualitative Arguments concerning the Bose-Einstein Condensation of Fermion Pairs

John M. Blatt

Published Jun 1, 1962• 12 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A detailed, and quite complex, calculation has shown that the Fermi-Dirac statistics of the particles making up a “pair” or “molecule” does not interfere with, but rather aids, Bose-Einstein condensation of these pairs. In this paper, we present some simple qualitative arguments which we have found useful in understanding this result.

DOI
10.1143/ptp.27.1137

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A detailed, and quite complex, calculation has shown that the Fermi-Dirac statistics of the particles making up a “pair” or “molecule” does not interfere with, but rather aids, Bose-Einstein condensation of these pairs. In this paper, we present some simple qualitative arguments which we have found useful in understanding this result.
In the pair-correlation, or quasi-chemical equilibrium, approximation to statistical mechanics, there appears the possibility of a condensation phenomenon closely analogous to a Bose-Einstein condensation of correlated pairs of particles. However, the expansion used in earlier work to establish this phenomenon fails to yield an adequate approximation at and below the condensation point. In this paper, we give an alternative development, first formally for an arbitrary number of quantum states of the pair, then carry out in detail for the case of only one, or only two, quantum states of the pair. It is shown that, in spite of the Fermi-Dirac statistics of the particles making up the pairs, it is nevertheless possible to accomodate an arbitrarily large number of particles within a single pair state. Furthermore, if two quantum states of the pair are possible, and conditions are such that either the pair state would be occupied by a macroscopic number of particles if it alone were present, then the Pauli exclusion principle works in such a way that the lower one of the two pair states is occupied by a macroscopic number of particles, whereas the occupation number of the upper pair state remains independent of the volume. This result is not restricted to pairs whose mean separation exceeds their internal size, but applies also to pairs which completely overlap each other. The result is therefore of significance in the theory of superconductivity where the electron pairs have an internal size of the order of the Pippard coherence length, which is much larger than the mean separation of their centres of gravity.
Abstract This chapter starts with a discussion of the symmetry conditions which have to be imposed on the wave function of a many-particle system, and the distinction between bosons and fermions. It then examines the consequences of these conditions for simple systems of non-interacting particles (Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics), and in particular, introduces the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in a noninteracting Bose gas. The phenomenon of Cooper pairing of interacting fermions is introduced by a thought-experiment in which one starts from a BEC of tightly bound diatomic molecules made of fermion atoms and gradually weakens the binding. The chapter closes with a description of the various physical systems to be treated in the book, and an account of the phenomenology of superfluidity and superconductivity. An appendix treats the statistical mechanics of a rotating system.
We show that an ansatz based on independent composite bosons [Phys. Rep. 463, 215 (2008)] accurately describes the condensate fraction of molecular Bose-Einstein condensates in ultracold Fermi gases. The entanglement between the fermionic constituents of a single Feshbach molecule then governs the many-particle statistics of the condensate, from the limit of strong interaction to close to unitarity. This result strengthens the role of entanglement as the indispensable driver of composite-boson behavior. The condensate fraction of fermion pairs at zero temperature that we compute matches excellently previous results obtained by means of fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo methods and the Bogoliubov depletion approximation. This paves the way towards the exploration of the BEC-BCS crossover physics in mixtures of cold Fermi gases with an arbitrary number of fermion pairs as well as the implementation of Hong-Ou-Mandel--like interference experiments proposed within coboson theory.