arXiv:cond-mat/0509798 · Physical Review A
Effective size of a trapped atomic Bose gas
Wenxian Zhang, Zhan Wei Xu, Li You
Abstract
We investigate the temperature-dependent effective size of a trapped interacting atomic Bose gas within a mean field theory approximation. The sudden shrinking of the average length, as observed in an earlier experiment by Wang et al. [Chin. Phys. Lett. 20, 799 (2003)], is shown to be a good indication for Bose-Einstein condensation. Our study also supports the use of the average width of a trapped Bose gas for a nondestructive calibration of its temperature.