Does the Critical Temperature Concept Make Sense for Bose Einstein Condensation in Mesoscopic Systems

M. L. Lekala, Sangita Bera, Gaotsiwe Joel Rampho +2 more

Vyacheslav I. Yukalov

Particle fluctuations in mesoscopic Bose systems of arbitrary spatial dimensionality are considered. Both ideal Bose gases and interacting Bose systems are studied in the regions above the Bose–Einstein condensation temperature T c , as well as below this temperature. The strength of particle fluctuations defines whether the system is stable or not. Stability conditions depend on the spatial dimensionality d and on the confining dimension D of the system. The consideration shows that mesoscopic systems, experiencing Bose–Einstein condensation, are stable when: (i) ideal Bose gas is confined in a rectangular box of spatial dimension d > 2 above T c and in a box of d > 4 below T c ; (ii) ideal Bose gas is confined in a power-law trap of a confining dimension D > 2 above T c and of a confining dimension D > 4 below T c ; (iii) the interacting Bose system is confined in a rectangular box of dimension d > 2 above T c , while below T c , particle interactions stabilize the Bose-condensed system, making it stable for d = 3 ; (iv) nonlocal interactions diminish the condensation temperature, as compared with the fluctuations in a system with contact interactions.

Xianzhi Wang

Yu Xue-Cai, Xue Huang, Yutang Ye

Konstantin E. Dorfman

The mesoscopic effects in the quantum trapped gases of the Bose atoms constitute\nthe main subject of the present thesis. These effects are the most difficult for\nthe theoretical analysis in the quantum statistical physics since they can’t be seen by\nneither a standard quantum mechanics of the simple microscopic systems of one or\nvery few atoms nor a standard statistical physics of the macroscopic systems that are\ninfinite in the bulk (thermodynamic) limit.\nMost of the experiments on the cold quantum gases performed in the last decade,\nstarting from the first demonstration of BEC in 1995, involve the mesoscopic systems\nof a finite number of atoms. The mesoscopic effects should manifest themselves most\nclearly and easily near a critical temperature of BEC; however, they could be observed\nalso above and below the critical temperature.\nHere I study the quantum and thermal fluctuations of the Bose-Einstein condensate\n(BEC) in a box with the periodic boundary conditions under a particle-number\nconstraint. The above constraint is the only reason for the BEC and is crucial for the\nmesoscopic effects in the BEC fluctuations, especially in the vicinity of the critical\ntemperature in the Bose gas.\nI employ the particle-number conserving operator formalism of Girardeau and\nArnowitt introduced in 1959 to analyze the canonical ensemble fluctuations. I present\nanalytical formulas and numerical calculations for the central moments of the ground\nstate occupation fluctuations in an ideal Bose gas in a box with a mesoscopic number of particles.\nI present the analysis of the BEC statistics both on a temperature at a fixed\nnumber of particles and on a number of particles at a fixed temperature. Both analyses\nare valid for the purpose of understanding the important mesoscopic effects near the\ncritical temperature. I emphasize the non-Gaussian nature of the fluctuations.\nThe presented formalism can be generalized to the case of a weakly interacting\nBose gas in a box in the framework of the Bogoliubov approximation. The work in\nthis direction is in progress but is not included in the present thesis.

Alexandra Olaya-Castro, Luis Quiroga

The role played by the effective dimensionality in the thermodynamic behaviour as well as in the ground-state population of an ideal mesoscopic system of non-interacting bosons, is numerically studied. Although Bose-Einstein condensation has not been predicted for one-dimensional systems, the heat capacity and ground state occupation behaviours give signatures of the possible condensation like in three- and two-dimensional limits, for a symmetrical confinement potential. It is found that the maximum values of both, critical and transition temperatures, increase as the system becomes two-dimensional, which could facilitate the experimental efforts.