The role of the background in bosonic quantum statistics is discussed in the frame of a new approach in terms of coherent states. Bose gas is not the only physical situation where bosons are detected. In particle physics bosons are dealt with in a context where the number of observed particles is finite: here the relevant feature are the canonical commutation relations, which we shall show to be related to a Boltzmann-like distribution. A further case is Bose condensate in harmonic traps, where discrete spectrum leads us to predict a new critical temperature. All these cases are analyzed in the unified approach proposed, showing that all differences can be ascribed to the role of the background.
The role of the background in bosonic quantum statistics is discussed in the frame of a new approach in terms of coherent states. Bose gas is not the only physical situation where bosons are detected. In particle physics bosons are dealt with in a context where the number of observed particles is finite: here the relevant feature are the canonical commutation relations, which we shall show to be related to a Boltzmann-like distribution. A further case is Bose condensate in harmonic traps, where discrete spectrum leads us to predict a new critical temperature. All these cases are analyzed in the unified approach proposed, showing that all differences can be ascribed to the role of the background.
Abstract. The role of the background in bosonic quantum statistics is discussed in the frame of a new approach in terms of coherent states. Bosons are indeed detected in different physical situations where they exhibit different and apparently unconnected properties. Besides Bose gas we consider bosons in particle physics and bosons in harmonic traps. In particle physics bosons are dealt with in a context where the number of observed particles is finite: here the relevant feature are the canonical commutation relations, which we shall show to be related to a Boltzmann-like distribution. A further case is Bose condensate in harmonic traps, where discrete spectrum leads us to predict, below Tc, a new critical temperature. The unified approach proposed shows that all differences can be ascribed to the environment.
A quantitative description of the whole process of condensation of bosons in an harmonic trap is given resorting only to Gibbs and Bose postulates, without assuming equipartition nor continuum statistics. Below Tc discrete spectrum theory predicts for the thermo-dynamical variables a behavior different from the continuum case. In particular a new critical temperature is found where the specific heat exhibits a lambda-like spike. Numerical values of the relevant quantities depend on the experimental set-up. The theory does not take into account collective effects in the ground state.
A detailed description of the statistical properties of a system of bosons in a harmonic trap at low temperature, which is expected to bear on the process of BE condensation, is given resorting only to the basic postulates of Gibbs and Bose, without assuming equipartition nor continuum statistics. Below Tc such discrete spectrum theory predicts for the thermo-dynamical variables a behavior different from the continuum case. In particular a new critical temperature Td emerges where the specific heat exhibits a λ-like spike.
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 L2-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
Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) is discussed at the level of an advanced course of statistical thermodynamics, clarifying some formal and physical aspects that are usually not covered by the standard pedagogical literature. The non-conventional approach adopted starts by showing that the continuum limit, in certain cases, cancels out the crucial role of the bosonic ground level. If so, a correct treatment of the problem, including the ground level population N 0 by construction, leads to BEC in a straightforward way. For a density of states of the form G ( )∝ γ , the chemical potential µ is explicitly calculated as a function of the temperature T and of the number N of bosons, for various significant values of the positive exponent γ. In the thermodynamic limit, in which the boson number N diverges and BEC is a sharp process, the chemical potential µ is a singular function of T at the critical temperature T B , determined by an appropriate critical exponent. The condensate population N 0 is studied analytically and numerically as a function of the temperature, for various values of N and for different γ. This provides an accurate description of the way BEC approaches the character of a sharp phase transition. Some aspects of the real experiments on BEC, involving a finite number of bosons, are also illustrated.
Bosons are particles that can occupy the same quantum state. Identical classical particles are considered distinguishable, but with bosons this is no longer the case. With bosons 1 and 2 in states α and β, the compound state function, ΨS=(1/2)Ψα(1)Ψβ(2)+Ψβ(1)Ψα(2), does not change when the particles are interchanged, i.e., there is one state where classically there would be two. This leads to boson statistics, which is different from Boltzmann statistics in that it favors putting more particles in the same state. For a sufficiently low temperature, it is possible that all bosons aggregate in the ground state where they effectively form a single megaparticle. We cover boson statistics and show how and why Bose-Einstein condensation can occur. We also show how growing networks like the WWW, the economy, or citation networks in scientific literature can follow boson statistics. Analyses of Bose-Einstein condensation have generally assumed a bath with a temperature, i.e., a thermal equilibrium where random collisions lead to a Gaussian-noise-term. However, many setups in physics involve conversion or transport of energy, i.e., nonequilibrium. Nonequilibrium noise is commonly characterized by the frequent occurrence of large kicks, i.e., outliers. We model this by implementing α-stable noise. No temperature exists in that case. We find that Bose-Einstein condensation is still theoretically possible, but probably much harder to engineer. Social and economic traffic is also often best modeled as nonequilibrium and our results may be significant in these contexts.