We present a theoretical study of the condensation of bosons in tight-binding bands corresponding to simple cubic, body-centered cubic, and face-centered cubic lattices. We have analyzed noninteracting bosons, weakly interacting bosons using the Bogoliubov method, and strongly interacting bosons through a renormalized Hamiltonian approach valid for the number of bosons per site less than or equal to unity. In all the cases studied, we find that bosons in a body-centered cubic lattice have the highest Bose condensation temperature. The growth of the condensate fraction of noninteracting bosons is found to be very close to that of free bosons. The interaction partially depletes the condensate at zero temperature and close to it, while enhancing it beyond this range below the Bose-Einstein condensation temperature. Strong interaction enhances the boson effective mass as the band-filling is increased and eventually localizes the bosons to form a Bose-Mott-Hubbard insulator for integer filling.
In this thesis, we study theoretically and in experimentally the properties of spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates with antiferromagnetic interactions realized in the ultra-cold sodium gases confined in optical dipole traps. We present in detail how to realize, diagnose and control the spinor Bose-Einstein condensates in our experiment. In order to describe the condensate, a mean-field theory is first adopted. This theory predicts a phase transition when changing the magnetic field
B. The predictions of the mean-field theory agree very well with most of our experimental results, including the values of the critical magnetic field
Bc, asymptotic values of
n0 (relative atom number in
mF=0 state) at large
B and the phase diagram of
n0. However, for small magnetization and small magnetic fields, we find abnormally large fluctuations (super-Poissonian) of
n0. In order to describe these large fluctuations, we develop a full quantum statistical description for the spinor condensate at finite temperature. To describe uncondensed thermal atoms (also present in the same trap), we use the ``semi-ideal" Hartree-Fock approximation to deal with the interactions between the condensate atoms and the thermal ones. The experimental results lead us to introduce two kinds of temperatures, the ``spin temperature"
Ts and the ``kinetic temperature"
Tk with
Ts≪Tk, characterizing respectively the fluctuaitons of the condensate spin and the thermal gas. We conclude that the system is reaching a quasi-equilibrium states, where different degrees of freedom reach equilibrium by separate mechanisms but where the mutual thermalization does not occur over the lifetime of the cloud.
We present a scheme of analytical calculations determining the critical temperature and the number of condensed atoms of ideal gas Bose-Einstein condensation in external potentials with 1D, 2D or 3D periodicity. In particular we show that the width of the lowest energy band appears as the main parameter determining the critical temperature of condensation. Is obtained a very simple, proportional to 1/3 degree, regularity for this dependence. The fundamental role of tunneling in physics of condensate establishment is underscored.
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is a phenomenon in which identical bosons occupy the same quantum state below a certain critical temperature. A hallmark of BEC is the coherence between particles every particle shares the same quantum wavefunction and phase. This coherence has been demonstrated for the external (motional) degrees of freedom of the atomic condensates by interfering two condensates. In this thesis, the coherence is shown to extend to the internal spin degrees of freedom of a spin-1 Bose gas evidenced by the observed coherent and reversible spin-changing collisions. The observed coherent dynamics are analogous to Josephson oscillations in weakly connected superconductors and represent a type of matter-wave four-wave mixing. Control of the coherent evolution of the system using magnetic fields is also demonstrated. The studies on spinor condensates begin by creating spinor condensates directly using all-optical approaches that were first developed in our laboratory. All-optical formation of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in 1D optical lattice and single focus trap geometries are developed and presented. These techniques offer considerable flexibility and speed compared to magnetic trap approaches, and the trapping potential can be essentially spin-independent and are ideally suited for studying spinor condensates. Using condensates with well-defined initial non-equilibrium spin configuration, spin mixing of F = 1 and F = 2 spinor condensates of rubidium-87 atoms confined in an optical trap is observed. The equilibrium spin configuration in the F = 1 manifold confirms that 87Rb is ferromagnetic. The coherent spinor dynamics are demonstrated by initiating spin mixing deterministically with a non-stationary spin population configuration. Finally, the interplay between the coherent spin mixing and spatial dynamics in spin-1 condensates with ferromagnetic interactions is investigated.
It is investigated theoretically that magnetized Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) with the internal (spin) degrees of freedom exhibits a rich variety of phase transitions, depending on the sign of the interaction in the spin channel. In the antiferromagnetic interaction case there exist always double BEC transitions from single component BEC to multiple component BEC. In the ferromagnetic case BEC becomes always unstable at a lower temperature, leading to a phase separation. The detailed phase diagram for the temperature vs the polarization, the spatial spin structure, the distribution of non-condensates and the excitation spectrum are examined for the harmonically trapped systems.
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of an ideal gas is investigated for a finite number of particles. In three dimensions, we find a transition temperature which is lower than in the thermodynamic limit. Lowering the dimension increases the transition temperature and is therefore favorable for BEC. This is in contrast to the standard result obtained in the thermodynamic limit which states that BEC is not possible in, e.g., a one-dimensional (1D) harmonic potential. As a result, 1D atom traps, such as radially tightly confining magnetic traps or optical dipole traps, are promising for studying BEC. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.