We theoretically investigate the physics of interacting Bose-Einstein condensates at equilibrium in a weak (possibly random) potential. We develop a perturbation approach to derive the condensate wave function for an amplitude of the potential smaller than the chemical potential of the condensate and for an arbitrary spatial variation scale of the potential. Applying this theory to disordered potentials, we find in particular that, if the healing length is smaller than the correlation length of the disorder, the condensate assumes a delocalized Thomas-Fermi profile. In the opposite situation where the correlation length is smaller than the healing length, we show that the random potential can be significantly smoothed and, in the mean-field regime, the condensate wave function can remain delocalized, even for very small correlation lengths of the disorder.
We theoretically investigate the physics of interacting Bose-Einstein condensates at equilibrium in a weak (possibly random) potential. We develop a perturbation approach to derive the condensate wave function for an amplitude of the potential smaller than the chemical potential of the condensate and for an arbitrary spatial variation scale of the potential. Applying this theory to disordered potentials, we find in particular that, if the healing length is smaller than the correlation length of the disorder, the condensate assumes a delocalized Thomas-Fermi profile. In the opposite situation where the correlation length is smaller than the healing length, we show that the random potential can be significantly smoothed and, in the mean-field regime, the condensate wave function can remain delocalized, even for very small correlation lengths of the disorder.
We present a detailed numerical study of the effect of a disordered potential on a confined one-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensate, in the framework of a mean-field description, using a highly efficient and fast converging numerical scheme. For repulsive interactions, we consider the Thomas–Fermi and Gaussian limits and for attractive interactions the behaviour of soliton solutions. We find that the average spatial extension of the stationary density profile decreases with an increasing disorder strength both for repulsive and attractive interactions among bosons. In the Thomas–Fermi limit, a strong localization of the bosons is obtained in momentum space around the state k = 0. The time-dependent density differs considerably in the cases we have considered. For attractive and disordered Bose–Einstein condensates, we show evidence of a bright soliton with an overall unchanged shape, but a disorder-dependent width. For weak disorder, the soliton is delocalized and for stronger disorder, it bounces back and forth between high potential barriers.
We theoretically investigate the localization of an expanding Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) with repulsive atom–atom interactions in a disordered potential. We focus on the regime where the initial inter-atomic interactions dominate over the kinetic energy and the disorder. At equilibrium in a trapping potential and for the considered small disorder, the condensate shows a Thomas–Fermi shape modified by the disorder. When the condensate is released from the trap, a strong suppression of the expansion is obtained in contrast to the situation in a periodic potential with similar characteristics. This effect crucially depends on both the momentum distribution of the expanding BEC and the strength of the disorder. For strong disorder as in the experiments reported by Clément et al 2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 170409 and Fort et al 2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 170410, the suppression of the expansion results from the fragmentation of the core of the condensate and from classical reflections from large modulations of the disordered potential in the tails of the condensate. We identify the corresponding disorder-induced trapping scenario for which large atom–atom interactions and strong reflections from single modulations of the disordered potential play central roles. For weak disorder, the suppression of the expansion signals the onset of Anderson localization, which is due to multiple scattering from the modulations of the disordered potential. We compute analytically the localized density profile of the condensate and show that the localization crucially depends on the correlation function of the disorder. In particular, for speckle potentials the long-range correlations induce an effective mobility edge in 1D finite systems. Numerical calculations performed in the mean-field approximation support our analysis for both strong and weak disorder.
We describe repulsively interacting Bose-Einstein condensates in spatially correlated disorder potentials of arbitrary dimension. The first effect of disorder is to deform the mean-field condensate. The second is that the quantum excitation spectrum and condensate population are affected. By a saddle-point expansion of the many-body Hamiltonian around the deformed mean-field ground state, we derive the fundamental quadratic Hamiltonian of quantum fluctuations. Importantly, a basis is used such that excitations are orthogonal to the deformed condensate. Via Bogoliubov-Nambu perturbation theory, we compute the effective excitation dispersion, including mean free paths and localization lengths. Corrections to the speed of sound and average density of states are calculated, due to correlated disorder in arbitrary dimensions, extending to the case of weak lattice potentials.
Properties of Bose–Einstein condensates (BEC) are studied in the presence of a Gaussian random potential of arbitrary strength of disorder and with arbitrary correlation length. Using the stochastic mean field approximation, a system having arbitrary strength of interactions is treated at finite temperature. A special case, in which we assume that the second moment of the random potential is Lorentzian, is treated in more detail at zero temperature. The total density of particles consists of condensate density, glassy density and normal density components. Our results are in agreement with those of Huang and Meng (HM). The system is stable below the critical value of the disorder parameter and undergoes a first-order phase transition at the critical value. We find that the critical value of the disorder parameter changes with changing the correlation length of the random potential.
Weakly interacting Bose gases in a disorder environment have long been a challenging topic in the field of solid-state physics due to the intriguing interplay between superfluidity and localization. In this thesis we investigate theoretically the equilibrium properties of one- and three-dimensional harmonically trapped dirty Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). In particular we focus on the decomposition of the total particle density into three components, namely, the condensate density, the thermal density, and the density of fragmented local Bose-Einstein condensates within the respective minima of the random potential landscape. In order to determine the different density components we develop a Hartree-Fock mean-field theory for a weakly interacting trapped BEC in a random environment, then specialize it to contact interaction and delta-correlated disorder. This non-perturbative theory is worked out on the basis of the replica method, which represents a well- established tool to deal with disorder problems. With this we calculate the corresponding free energy at finite temperature and derive from it the underlying self-consistency equations for the respective density components. Then, as a first step, we investigate a quasi one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensed gas in a harmonic trapping potential with an additional delta- correlated disorder potential at zero temperature. To this end we solve the self-consistency equations within the Thomas-Fermi approximation and find the emergence of a Bose-glass region, where the condensate vanishes. We corroborate this analysis by an elaborate numerical treatment, where the corresponding one-dimensional time-independent Gross-Pitaevskii equation is numerically solved and disorder-ensemble averages of the condensate wave function are performed. The variance of the condensate wave function quantifies the number of bosons which condense in the local minima of the random potential. For weak disorder these mini-condensates turn out to occur preferentially at the border of the condensate, while for intermediate disorder strength this happens in the trap center. Additionally we use a variational ansatz in order to describe analytically the numerically observed redistribution of the fragmented mini-condensates with increasing disorder strength. In close analogy to the one-dimensional case we then treat the three-dimensional dirty Bose gas in an isotropic harmonic trap and a delta- correlated disorder potential at zero temperature using the corresponding self-consistency equations obtained via the Hartree-Fock mean-field theory within the Thomas-Fermi approximation. Additionally we use a variational ansatz, whose results turn out to coincide qualitatively with those obtained from the Thomas-Fermi approximation. Inparticular, a first order quantum phase transition from the superfluid phase, where the condensate density contributes to the total density, to the Bose-glass phase, where all particles are in the mini-condensates, is detected at a critical disorder strength, which agrees with findings in the literature. Furthermore, in a generaltriaxial harmonic trap, we investigate the geometric effect of different trap aspect ratios on the respective properties of the dirty BEC system. Finally, we consider the three- dimensional dirty BEC at finite temperature. This allows us to study the impact of both temperature and disorder fluctuations on the respective components of the density as well as their Thomas-Fermi radii. In particular, we find that the superfluid region, the Bose-glass region, and the thermal region coexist. Furthermore, depending on the system parameters, three phase transitions are detected, namely, one from the superfluid to the Bose-glass phase, one from the Boseglass to the thermal phase, and finally one directly from the superfluid to the thermal phase. All these results could be particularly useful for a quantitative analysis of world-wide on-going experiments with dirty bosons in quasi one-dimensional and three-dimensional harmonic traps.
The influence of a weak random potential on the collective modes of a trapped interacting Bose-Einstein condensate at zero temperature is calculated in the limit when the correlation length of the disorder is smaller than the healing length of the superfluid. The problem is solved in the Thomas-Fermi limit by generalizing the superfluid hydrodynamic equations to allow for the presence of weak disorder. We find that the disorder-induced frequency shifts of the low-energy excitations can be of the same order of magnitude as the beyond mean-field corrections in the normal interaction recently observed experimentally.