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1 Bose-Einstein condensates in symmetry breaking states

Yvan Castin, Christopher P. Herzog

Published Jan 1, 2000• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We consider two models of interacting Bose gases: a gas of spin one particles in the ground state of a cubic box and a one-dimension Bose gas with contact interactions. We show how to calculate exact eigenstates of the corresponding N-body Hamiltonians. Both models share the property of not leading to the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, even at zero temperature, in the strict sense of the existence of a single one-particle state with a macroscopic population. We show that a lot of physical insight can be gained on these two model systems by using the usual Hartree-Fock mean field approach: in this approximation, that we test against the exact result, everything happens as if a single realization of the system was a Bose-Einstein condensate in a state phi breaking the rotational or translational symmetry, and varying in a random way for any new experimental realization.

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A note on spontaneous symmetry breaking in the mean-field Bose gas

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Bose-Einstein Condensation in Random Potentials

Maximilian Pechmann

Bose–Einstein condensation can be understood as a macroscopic occupation of a single-particle state. But an alternative definition, which requires only a macroscopic occupation of an arbitrarily small energy band of single-particle states, is also known, referred to as generalized Bose–Einstein condensation, and considered to be thermodynamically more stable. Depending on the number of macroscopically occupied single-particle states in the condensate, three types are then distin-guished. If the number of macroscopically occupied single-particle states is finite but at least one, then the condensation is said to be of type-I. A type-II condensate occurs if infinitely many single-particle states are macroscopically occupied. If a generalized Bose–Einstein condensation without any macroscopically occupied single-particle states is present, then one speaks of a type-III con-densation. In noninteracting Bose gases, it is generally easier to prove the occurrence of generalized Bose–Einstein condensation than to determine its type. While a main step for the former task is to show that the critical density is finite, quite detailed knowledge of the energy gaps of the cor-responding single-particle Hamiltonian at the lower edge of the spectrum is needed for the latter one. In this dissertation, we study the occurrence of a Bose–Einstein condensate in Bose gases that are placed in metrically transitive random potentials. We mainly consider the Poisson random potential. The thermodynamic limit and Dirichlet boundary conditions are used throughout this work. We explore noninteracting Bose gases in arbitrary dimension at positive temperatures and a one-dimensional interacting Bose gas at zero temperature. We provide fairly general sufficient conditions for the random potential that imply the almost sure occurrence of generalized Bose–Einstein condensation in noninteracting Bose gases. These conditions are fulfilled by a Poisson random potential, depending on its single-impurity potential. They are also met by the one-dimensional Luttinger–Sy model, which is a central system in the research area of Bose gases in random potentials, and a generalization thereof. Moreover, we state sufficient energy gap conditions such that one can conclude a type-I condensation in Poisson random potentials. We consider different probabilistic notions here, such as convergence in the rth mean, r P N, in probability, and with probability almost one. In particular, we prove that in the Luttinger–Sy model with infinitely strong random potential a type-I condensation occurs in the rth mean, r P N, if the particle density is greater than the critical one. For the Luttinger–Sy model with a finitely strong random potential, we show the same statement, but with probability almost one. Finally, we discuss the Luttinger–Sy model with a repulsive contact interaction between the particles at zero temperature. We provide sufficient requirements such that a generalized Bose–Einstein condensate almost surely occurs. We also show that the type of the condensate is altered by the interparticle interaction. In particular, we demonstrate a transition from a type-I to a type-III condensate when the strength of the contact interaction is increased. Furthermore, we prove that the interparticle interaction reduces the local particle density.

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Bose-Einstein condensation in an interacting Bose liquid

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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.

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Bose-Einstein condensation and symmetry breaking

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Adding a gauge symmetry breaking field $\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\nu}\sqrt{V}({a}_{0}+{a}_{0}^{*})$ to the Hamiltonian of some simplified models of an interacting Bose gas we compute the condensate density and the symmetry breaking order parameter in the limit of infinite volume and prove Bogoliubov's asymptotic hypothesis ${\mathrm{lim}}_{V\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}}⟨{a}_{0}⟩∕\sqrt{V}=\mathrm{sgn}\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\nu}\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{lim}}_{V\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}}\sqrt{⟨{a}_{0}^{*}{a}_{0}⟩∕V}$ where the averages are taken in the ground state or in thermal equilibrium states. Letting $\ensuremath{\nu}$ tend to zero in this equation we obtain that Bose-Einstein condensation occurs if and only if the gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken. The simplification consists in dropping the off-diagonal terms in the momentum representation of the pair interaction. The models include the mean field and the imperfect (Huang-Yang-Luttinger) Bose gas. An implication of the result is that the compressibility sum rule cannot hold true in the ground state of the one-dimensional mean-field Bose gas. Our method is based on a resolution of the Hamiltonian into a family of single-mode $(\mathbf{k}=0)$ Hamiltonians and on the analysis of the associated microcanonical ensembles.

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Bose-Einstein in two -dimensional traps

Juan Pablo Fernández

The fact that two-dimensional interacting trapped systems do not undergo Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) in the thermodynamic limit, though rigorously proved, is somewhat mysterious because all relevant limiting cases (zero temperature, small atom numbers, noninteracting particles) suggest otherwise. We study the possibility of condensation in finite trapped two-dimensional systems. We first consider the ideal gas, which incorporates the inhomogeneity and finite size of experimental systems and can be solved exactly. A semiclassical self-consistent approximation gives us a feel for the temperature scales; diagonalization of the one-body density matrix confirms that the condensation is into a single state. We squeeze a three-dimensional system and see how it crosses over into two dimensions. Mean-field theory, our main tool for the study of interacting systems, prescribes coupled equations for the condensate and the thermal cloud: the condensate receives a full quantum-mechanical treatment, while the noncondensate is described by different schemes of varying sophistication. We analyze the T = 0 case and its approach to the thermodynamic limit, finding a criterion for the dimensionality crossover and obtaining the coupling constant of the two-dimensional system that results from squeezing a three-dimensional trap. We next apply a semiclassical Hartree-Fock approximation to purely two-dimensional finite gases and find that they can be described either with or without a condensate; this continues to be true in the thermodynamic limit. The condensed solutions have a lower free energy at all temperatures but neglect the presence of phonons within the system and cease to exist when we allow for this possibility. The uncondensed solutions, in turn, are valid under a more rigorous scheme but have consistency problems of their own. Path-integral Monte Carlo simulations provide an essentially exact description of finite interacting gases and enable us to study highly anisotropic systems at finite temperature. We find that our two-dimensional Hartree-Fock solutions accurately mimic the surface density profile and predict the condensate fraction of these systems; the equivalent interaction parameter is smaller than that dictated by the T = 0 analysis. We conclude that, in two-dimensional isotropic finite trapped systems and in highly compressed three-dimensional gases, there is a phenomenon resembling a condensation into a single state.

•Jan 1, 2004•0 citations

Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Properties of Dilute Bose Gases

Oldenburg, Jakob Felix

Quantum systems consisting of many particles are both interesting from the physics and the mathematics perspective. One aspect that makes them fascinating from the physics point of view is that they can exhibit quantum effects on macroscopic scales such as Bose-Einstein condensation. This phenomenon, first predicted 100 years ago by Bose [19] and Einstein [44], occurs when a dilute gas of bosons is cooled down to very low temperatures. Below a certain critical temperature a condensate forms, meaning that a macroscopic fraction of the particles is in the same one-particle state, and thus, quantum phenomena become relevant on length scales much larger than the individual atom. The occurrence of Bose-Einstein condensation is also related to superfluidity as suggested in [88]. Bose-Einstein condensation has been achieved experimentally independently by the groups of Cornell and Wieman [3] and Ketterle [40] earning them a Nobel prize in 2001. While Bose and Einstein analyzed theoretically the non-interacting gas, an effective theory describing weakly interacting Bose gases was proposed by Bogoliubov in 1947 with the goal of explaining the occurrence of superfluidity in liquid helium [18]. Using assumptions such as that condensation indeed occurs, his theory yields predictions for the low-energy states of the system. Seen from the mathematics perspective, describing the Bose gas is an interesting challenge due to the strong correlations between particles introduced by the interaction making this case much harder to study than the non-interacting one. In particular, a proof that Bose-Einstein condensation occurs in the thermodynamic limit for continuous systems is still out of reach. However, there has been a lot of work regarding the rigorous analysis of bosonic systems in various relevant regimes. This thesis contains three new contributions establishing rigorous results on bosonic systems in different, physically relevant settings. It is based on the articles [37, 27, 31]. The first result concerns the time-evolution of initially trapped Bose gases in the ultra-dilute Gross-Pitaevskii regime. Under some assumptions on the initial data satisfied in particular by a class of states that are expected to approximate the ground state in a trap, we derive a quasi-free approximation that is close to the true solution in $L^2$-norm. In particular, we show that this approximate wave function is described in terms of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-particle state following the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation together with pair excitations with respect to this condensate. As a corollary, we establish a central limit theorem for bounded one-particle observables. The second result is a simple proof of Bose-Einstein condensation for interacting, ultra-dilute gases. More specifically, we consider scalings interpolating between the Gross-Pitaevskii regime and the thermodynamic limit. While condensation had been shown to hold in these regimes before, the advantage of the method used here is its simplicity. Lastly, the third result establishes an upper bound on the ground state energy of a dilute Bose gas in the thermodynamic limit. It captures rigorously the third order correction to the energy per unit volume for sufficiently low densities as predicted in the physics literature first by Wu and subsequently others. $\textit{Full-text embargoed until: 2026-01-01}$

•Dec 9, 2025•0 citations
We consider two models of interacting Bose gases: a gas of spin one particles in the ground state of a cubic box and a one-dimension Bose gas with contact interactions. We show how to calculate exact eigenstates of the corresponding N-body Hamiltonians. Both models share the property of not leading to the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, even at zero temperature, in the strict sense of the existence of a single one-particle state with a macroscopic population. We show that a lot of physical insight can be gained on these two model systems by using the usual Hartree-Fock mean field approach: in this approximation, that we test against the exact result, everything happens as if a single realization of the system was a Bose-Einstein condensate in a state phi breaking the rotational or translational symmetry, and varying in a random way for any new experimental realization.
Abstract We consider the homogeneous Bose gas in the three-dimensional unit torus, where N particles interact via a two-body potential of the form N−1v(x)N^{-1} v(x)N−1v(x) N - 1 v ( x ) . The system is studied at inverse temperatures of order N−2/3N^{-2/3}N−2/3 N - 2 / 3 , which corresponds to the temperature scale of the Bose–Einstein condensation phase transition. We show that spontaneous U (1) symmetry breaking occurs if and only if the system exhibits Bose–Einstein condensation in the sense that the one-particle density matrix of the Gibbs state has a macroscopic eigenvalue.
Bose–Einstein condensation can be understood as a macroscopic occupation of a single-particle state. But an alternative definition, which requires only a macroscopic occupation of an arbitrarily small energy band of single-particle states, is also known, referred to as generalized Bose–Einstein condensation, and considered to be thermodynamically more stable. Depending on the number of macroscopically occupied single-particle states in the condensate, three types are then distin-guished. If the number of macroscopically occupied single-particle states is finite but at least one, then the condensation is said to be of type-I. A type-II condensate occurs if infinitely many single-particle states are macroscopically occupied. If a generalized Bose–Einstein condensation without any macroscopically occupied single-particle states is present, then one speaks of a type-III con-densation. In noninteracting Bose gases, it is generally easier to prove the occurrence of generalized Bose–Einstein condensation than to determine its type. While a main step for the former task is to show that the critical density is finite, quite detailed knowledge of the energy gaps of the cor-responding single-particle Hamiltonian at the lower edge of the spectrum is needed for the latter one. In this dissertation, we study the occurrence of a Bose–Einstein condensate in Bose gases that are placed in metrically transitive random potentials. We mainly consider the Poisson random potential. The thermodynamic limit and Dirichlet boundary conditions are used throughout this work. We explore noninteracting Bose gases in arbitrary dimension at positive temperatures and a one-dimensional interacting Bose gas at zero temperature. We provide fairly general sufficient conditions for the random potential that imply the almost sure occurrence of generalized Bose–Einstein condensation in noninteracting Bose gases. These conditions are fulfilled by a Poisson random potential, depending on its single-impurity potential. They are also met by the one-dimensional Luttinger–Sy model, which is a central system in the research area of Bose gases in random potentials, and a generalization thereof. Moreover, we state sufficient energy gap conditions such that one can conclude a type-I condensation in Poisson random potentials. We consider different probabilistic notions here, such as convergence in the rth mean, r P N, in probability, and with probability almost one. In particular, we prove that in the Luttinger–Sy model with infinitely strong random potential a type-I condensation occurs in the rth mean, r P N, if the particle density is greater than the critical one. For the Luttinger–Sy model with a finitely strong random potential, we show the same statement, but with probability almost one. Finally, we discuss the Luttinger–Sy model with a repulsive contact interaction between the particles at zero temperature. We provide sufficient requirements such that a generalized Bose–Einstein condensate almost surely occurs. We also show that the type of the condensate is altered by the interparticle interaction. In particular, we demonstrate a transition from a type-I to a type-III condensate when the strength of the contact interaction is increased. Furthermore, we prove that the interparticle interaction reduces the local particle density.
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.
Adding a gauge symmetry breaking field $\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\nu}\sqrt{V}({a}_{0}+{a}_{0}^{*})$ to the Hamiltonian of some simplified models of an interacting Bose gas we compute the condensate density and the symmetry breaking order parameter in the limit of infinite volume and prove Bogoliubov's asymptotic hypothesis ${\mathrm{lim}}_{V\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}}⟨{a}_{0}⟩∕\sqrt{V}=\mathrm{sgn}\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\nu}\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{lim}}_{V\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}}\sqrt{⟨{a}_{0}^{*}{a}_{0}⟩∕V}$ where the averages are taken in the ground state or in thermal equilibrium states. Letting $\ensuremath{\nu}$ tend to zero in this equation we obtain that Bose-Einstein condensation occurs if and only if the gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken. The simplification consists in dropping the off-diagonal terms in the momentum representation of the pair interaction. The models include the mean field and the imperfect (Huang-Yang-Luttinger) Bose gas. An implication of the result is that the compressibility sum rule cannot hold true in the ground state of the one-dimensional mean-field Bose gas. Our method is based on a resolution of the Hamiltonian into a family of single-mode (k=0)(\mathbf{k}=0)(k=0) Hamiltonians and on the analysis of the associated microcanonical ensembles.
The fact that two-dimensional interacting trapped systems do not undergo Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) in the thermodynamic limit, though rigorously proved, is somewhat mysterious because all relevant limiting cases (zero temperature, small atom numbers, noninteracting particles) suggest otherwise. We study the possibility of condensation in finite trapped two-dimensional systems. We first consider the ideal gas, which incorporates the inhomogeneity and finite size of experimental systems and can be solved exactly. A semiclassical self-consistent approximation gives us a feel for the temperature scales; diagonalization of the one-body density matrix confirms that the condensation is into a single state. We squeeze a three-dimensional system and see how it crosses over into two dimensions. Mean-field theory, our main tool for the study of interacting systems, prescribes coupled equations for the condensate and the thermal cloud: the condensate receives a full quantum-mechanical treatment, while the noncondensate is described by different schemes of varying sophistication. We analyze the T = 0 case and its approach to the thermodynamic limit, finding a criterion for the dimensionality crossover and obtaining the coupling constant of the two-dimensional system that results from squeezing a three-dimensional trap. We next apply a semiclassical Hartree-Fock approximation to purely two-dimensional finite gases and find that they can be described either with or without a condensate; this continues to be true in the thermodynamic limit. The condensed solutions have a lower free energy at all temperatures but neglect the presence of phonons within the system and cease to exist when we allow for this possibility. The uncondensed solutions, in turn, are valid under a more rigorous scheme but have consistency problems of their own. Path-integral Monte Carlo simulations provide an essentially exact description of finite interacting gases and enable us to study highly anisotropic systems at finite temperature. We find that our two-dimensional Hartree-Fock solutions accurately mimic the surface density profile and predict the condensate fraction of these systems; the equivalent interaction parameter is smaller than that dictated by the T = 0 analysis. We conclude that, in two-dimensional isotropic finite trapped systems and in highly compressed three-dimensional gases, there is a phenomenon resembling a condensation into a single state.
Quantum systems consisting of many particles are both interesting from the physics and the mathematics perspective. One aspect that makes them fascinating from the physics point of view is that they can exhibit quantum effects on macroscopic scales such as Bose-Einstein condensation. This phenomenon, first predicted 100 years ago by Bose [19] and Einstein [44], occurs when a dilute gas of bosons is cooled down to very low temperatures. Below a certain critical temperature a condensate forms, meaning that a macroscopic fraction of the particles is in the same one-particle state, and thus, quantum phenomena become relevant on length scales much larger than the individual atom. The occurrence of Bose-Einstein condensation is also related to superfluidity as suggested in [88]. Bose-Einstein condensation has been achieved experimentally independently by the groups of Cornell and Wieman [3] and Ketterle [40] earning them a Nobel prize in 2001. While Bose and Einstein analyzed theoretically the non-interacting gas, an effective theory describing weakly interacting Bose gases was proposed by Bogoliubov in 1947 with the goal of explaining the occurrence of superfluidity in liquid helium [18]. Using assumptions such as that condensation indeed occurs, his theory yields predictions for the low-energy states of the system. Seen from the mathematics perspective, describing the Bose gas is an interesting challenge due to the strong correlations between particles introduced by the interaction making this case much harder to study than the non-interacting one. In particular, a proof that Bose-Einstein condensation occurs in the thermodynamic limit for continuous systems is still out of reach. However, there has been a lot of work regarding the rigorous analysis of bosonic systems in various relevant regimes. This thesis contains three new contributions establishing rigorous results on bosonic systems in different, physically relevant settings. It is based on the articles [37, 27, 31]. The first result concerns the time-evolution of initially trapped Bose gases in the ultra-dilute Gross-Pitaevskii regime. Under some assumptions on the initial data satisfied in particular by a class of states that are expected to approximate the ground state in a trap, we derive a quasi-free approximation that is close to the true solution in L2L^2L2-norm. In particular, we show that this approximate wave function is described in terms of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-particle state following the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation together with pair excitations with respect to this condensate. As a corollary, we establish a central limit theorem for bounded one-particle observables. The second result is a simple proof of Bose-Einstein condensation for interacting, ultra-dilute gases. More specifically, we consider scalings interpolating between the Gross-Pitaevskii regime and the thermodynamic limit. While condensation had been shown to hold in these regimes before, the advantage of the method used here is its simplicity. Lastly, the third result establishes an upper bound on the ground state energy of a dilute Bose gas in the thermodynamic limit. It captures rigorously the third order correction to the energy per unit volume for sufficiently low densities as predicted in the physics literature first by Wu and subsequently others. Full-text embargoed until: 2026-01-01\textit{Full-text embargoed until: 2026-01-01}Full-text embargoed until: 2026-01-01