We investigate the critical temperature of an interacting Bose gas confined in a trap described by a generic isotropic power-law potential. We compare the results with respect to the non-interacting case. In particular, we derive an analytical formula for the shift of the critical temperature holding to first order in the scattering length. We show that this shift scales as Nn/3(n+2), where N is the number of Bosons and n is the exponent of the power-law potential. Moreover, the sign of the shift critically depends on the power-law exponent n. Finally, we find that the shift of the critical temperature due to finite-size effects vanishes as N-2n/3(n+2).
We investigate ideal quantum gases in D-dimensional space and confined in a generic external potential by using the semiclassical approximation. In particular, we derive density of states, density profiles and critical temperatures for Fermions and Bosons trapped in isotropic power-law potentials. From such results, one can easily obtain those of quantum gases in a rigid box and in a harmonic trap. Finally, we show that the Bose–Einstein condensation can set up in a confining power-law potential if and only if D/2+D/n>1, where D is the space dimension and n is the power-law exponent.
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of an ideal gas is investigated, beyond the thermodynamic limit, for a finite number
N of particles trapped in a generic three-dimensional power-law potential. We derive an analytical expression for the condensation temperature
Tc in terms of a power series in ${x}_{0}={\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{0}/{k}_{B}{T}_{c}$, where ${\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}_{0}$ denotes the zero-point energy of the trapping potential. This expression, which applies in Cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical power-law traps, is given analytically at infinite order. It is also given numerically for specific potential shapes as an expansion in powers of
x0 up to the second order. We show that, for a harmonic trap, the well-known first-order shift of the critical temperature $\ensuremath{\Delta}{T}_{c}/{T}_{c}\ensuremath{\propto}{N}^{\ensuremath{-}1/3}$ is inaccurate when $N\ensuremath{\leqslant}{10}^{5}$, the next order (proportional to ${N}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$) being significant. We also show that finite-size effects on the condensation temperature cancel out in a cubic trapping potential, e.g., $V(r)\ensuremath{\propto}{r}^{3}$. Finally, we show that in a generic power-law potential of higher order, e.g., $V(r)\ensuremath{\propto}{r}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ with $\ensuremath{\alpha}>3$, the shift of the critical temperature becomes positive. This effect provides a large increase of
Tc for relatively small atom numbers. For instance, an increase of about $+$40% is expected with
104 atoms in a $V(r)\ensuremath{\propto}{r}^{12}$ trapping potential.