preprint: SISSA 39/2007/mp Emergence and applications of the ubiquitous tool of reduced density matrices in the rigorous analysis of Bose Einstein condensation is reviewed, and new related results are added. The need and the nature of scaling limits of infinitely many particles is discussed, which imposes that a physically meaningful and mathematically well-posed definition of asymptotic condensation is placed at the level of marginals. The topic of correlations in the condensed state is addressed in order to show their influence at this level of marginals, both in the true condensed state and in the suitable trial functions one introduces to approximate the many-body structure and energy. Complete condensation is shown to be equivalently defined at any fixed kbody level, both for pure and mixed states. Further, it is proven to be equivalent to some other characterizations in terms of asymptotic factorization of the many-body state, which are currently present in the literature.
preprint: SISSA 39/2007/mp Emergence and applications of the ubiquitous tool of reduced density matrices in the rigorous analysis of Bose Einstein condensation is reviewed, and new related results are added. The need and the nature of scaling limits of infinitely many particles is discussed, which imposes that a physically meaningful and mathematically well-posed definition of asymptotic condensation is placed at the level of marginals. The topic of correlations in the condensed state is addressed in order to show their influence at this level of marginals, both in the true condensed state and in the suitable trial functions one introduces to approximate the many-body structure and energy. Complete condensation is shown to be equivalently defined at any fixed kbody level, both for pure and mixed states. Further, it is proven to be equivalent to some other characterizations in terms of asymptotic factorization of the many-body state, which are currently present in the literature.
This work is an up-to-date and partially improved analysis of the basics of the mathe- matical description of Bose-Einstein condensation in terms of first principles of Quantum Mechanics. The main aims are: 1) to provide a compact, yet coherent overview: - of the basic mathematical tools used to formalise Bose-Einstein condensation, - of the mathematical techniques for studying several features of this physical phenomenon, - and of how such means emerge as the natural ones in connection with their physical interpretation; 2) to discuss and to place in the above perspective some new contributions and improvements: - on equivalent characterizations of Bose-Einstein condensation, - on the strength of the convergence for some currently available asymptotic results, - and on the effects of interparticle correlations on the energy and the dynamics of the many-body condensate.
Abstract Fragmented Bose–Einstein condensates are large systems of identical bosons displaying multiple macroscopic occupations of one-body states, in a suitable sense. The quest for an effective dynamics of the fragmented condensate at the leading order in the number of particles, in analogy to the much more controlled scenario for complete condensation in one single state, is deceptive both because characterising fragmentation solely in terms of reduced density matrices is unsatisfactory and ambiguous, and because as soon as the time evolution starts the rank of the reduced marginals generically passes from finite to infinite, which is a signature of a transfer of occupations on infinitely many more one-body states. In this work we review these difficulties, we refine previous characterisations of fragmented condensates in terms of marginals, and we provide a quantitative rate of convergence to the leading effective dynamics in the double limit of infinitely many particles and infinite energy gap.
In the context of the rigorous analysis of Bose-Einstein condensation, recent achievements have been obtained in the form of asymptotic results when some appropriate scaling is performed in the Hamiltonian, and the limit of infinite number of particles is taken. In particular, two modified thermodynamic limits of infinite dilution turned out to provide an insight in this analysis, the so-called Gross-Pitaevskiĭ limit and the related Thomas-Fermi limit. Here such scalings are discussed with respect to their physical and mathematical motivations and to the currently known results obtained within this framework.
An exact expression for the single-particle reduced density matrix of a translationally invariant system of bosons is obtained, as an average of a functional of the density and current operators. An approximation scheme, based on small fluctuations in density and current, is used in its lowest order, to approximate the single-particle reduced density matrix and the condensate density by a functional of the structure factor, which is a measurable quantity. This is done for the ground state and for finite temperatures. The resulting expressions for the condensate density are discussed. For the ideal gas the result is correct below the condensation temperature. For the case of an interacting liquid, Bose-Einstein condensation exists, in the ground states for two- and three-dimensional systems, and for finite temperatures it does exist only in three dimensions. The present experimental knowledge of the structure factor enables only a crude estimate of the condensed fraction which is found to be 0.1-0.2.
This thesis investigates the rigorous derivation of non-linear effective equations describing the time evolution of Bose-Einstein condensation from the N-particle linear Schrödinger equation, focusing on the one-particle reduced density matrix. The first chapter outlines the mathematical framework of many-body quantum mechanics, including the Fock space formalism. The second chapter studies the mean-field regime, proving that the condensed state converges to the non-linear Hartree equation by analyzing fluctuation dynamics to quantify the convergence rate. The third chapter addresses the physically realistic but mathematically challenging Gross-Pitaevskii regime, characterized by rare but strong interactions. Here, Bogoliubov transformations are used to capture crucial microscopic short-scale correlations, allowing for a quantitative derivation of the cubic non-linear Schrödinger equation. While the preceding chapters focus exclusively on repulsive interactions, the fourth chapter explores the focusing case with attractive potentials, which can lead to finite-time blow-up. Operating in an intermediate scaling regime, the effective focusing cubic non-linear Schrödinger equation is rigorously derived. Since the negative energy cannot bound many-body fluctuations, convergence is proven by approximating the dynamics via a quadratic Hamiltonian, in the spirit of Bogoliubov theory, and avoiding Grönwall estimates through the analysis of a coupled system of one-body linear equations for the one-particle density matrices.
This thesis can be regarded as a light, but thorough, introduction to the algebraic approach to quantum statistical mechanics and a subsequent test of this framework in the form of an application to Bose-Einstein condensates. The success of the algebraic approach to quantum statistical mechanics hinges upon the remarkable properties of special operator algebras known as C^*-algebras. These algebras have unique characterization properties which allows one to readily identify the mathematical counterparts of concepts in physics while at the same time maintaining mathematical rigour and clarity. In the first half of this thesis, we focus on abstract C^*-algebras known as the canonical commutation relation algebras (CCR algebras) which are generated by elements satisfying specific commutation relations. The main result in this section is the proof of a certain kind of algebraic uniqueness of these algebras. The main idea of the proof is to utilise the underlying common structure of any of the CCR algebras and explicitly construct an isomorphism between the generators of these algebras. The construction of this isomorphism involves the use of abstract Fourier analysis on groups and various arguments concerning bounded operators. The second half of the thesis concerns the rigorous set-up of the formation of Bose-Einstein condensation. First, one defines the Gibbs grand canonical equilibrium states, and then we specialize to studying the taking of the thermodynamic limit of these systems in various contexts. The main result of this section involves two main elements. The first is that by fixing the temperature and density of the system while varying its activity and volume, there exists a limiting state corresponding to the taking of the thermodynamic limit. The second element concerns the existence of a critical density after which the limiting state begins to show the physical characteristics of Bose-Einstein condensation. The mathematical issues one faces with Bose-Einstein condensation are mainly related to the unboundedness of the creation and annihilation operators and the definition of the algebra that we are working on. The first issue is relevant to all areas of mathematical physics, and one deals with it in the standard ways. The second issue is more nuanced and is a direct result of the first issue we mentioned. In particular, we would like to define the states on an algebra which contains the operators that we are interested in. The problem is that these operators are unbounded, and, as a result, one must instead use the CCR algebra and show by extension that we can, in fact, also use the unbounded operators in this state.