Bose-Einstein condensates of
10485Rb atoms in a cylindrical trap are studied using a recently proposed approach based on a local-density approximation. Since the existence of a Feshbach resonance allows for widely tuning the scattering length of the atoms, values of the peak gas parameter
xpk of the order of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$ may be attained and the standard analysis based on Gross-Pitaevskii and/or Thomas-Fermi equations may result in being questionable. Energy functionals derived from the correlated basis functions theory and the low-density expansion for a homogeneous hard-spheres gas are used to estimate corrections to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The two functionals give similar results, both showing large differences with respect to the Thomas-Fermi and Gross-Pitaevskii ones. The column densities at
z=0 may differ by as much as $\ensuremath{\sim}30%$ and the half maximum radius by $\ensuremath{\sim}20%.$ The scattering lengths estimated by fitting the half maximum radius may differ by $\ensuremath{\sim}40%$ from those given by a Thomas-Fermi-based analysis of the experimental data.
A novel Thomas-Fermi (TF) approach to inhomogeneous superfluid Fermi-systems is presented and shown that it works well also in cases where the Local Density Approximation (LDA) breaks down. The novelty lies in the fact that the semiclassical approximation is applied to the pairing matrix elements not implying a local version of the chemical potential as with LDA. Applications will be given to the generic fact that if a fermionic superfluid in the BCS regime overflows from a narrow container into a much wider one, pairing is substantially reduced at the overflow point. Two examples pertinent to the physics of the outer crust of neutron stars and superfluid fermionic atoms in traps will be presented. The TF results will be compared to quantal and LDA ones.
Ultracold atoms provide clues to an important many-body problem regarding the dependence of the Bose-Einstein condensation transition temperature
Tc on interactions. However, cold atoms are trapped in harmonic potentials and theoretical evaluations of the
Tc shift of trapped interacting Bose gases are challenging. While previous predictions of the leading-order shift have been confirmed, more recent experiments exhibit higher-order corrections beyond available mean-field theories. By implementing two large-
N-based theories with the local density approximation (LDA), we extract next-order corrections of the
Tc shift. The leading-order large-
N theory produces results quantitatively different from the latest experimental data. The leading-order auxiliary-field (LOAF) theory, containing both normal and anomalous density fields, captures the
Tc shift accurately in the weak-interaction regime. However, the LOAF theory shows incompatible behavior with the LDA, and forcing the LDA leads to density discontinuities in the trap profiles. We present a phenomenological model based on the LOAF theory, which repairs the incompatibility and provides a prediction of the
Tc shift in the stronger-interaction regime.
Bose-Einstein condensation in trapped gases of 85 Rb atoms can now be obtained in the large gas-parameter region in presence of Feshbach resonance and the gas density which is characterized by peak gas parameter x pk can attain the value ~ 10 -2 . For such large gas-parameter, the first correction term to the Bogoliubov energy functional is considered to give modified Gross-Pitaevskii (MGP) equation. In this work analytical expressions for the chemical potential, the density of particles and the excitation frequency of the monopole mode have been derived in Thomas-Fermi(TF) approximated approach to the MGP equation (modified TF approach) following method of higher order iteration for Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of atoms in spherically symmetric trap. We have also solved the MGP equation by using Runge-Kutta method for integration of nonlinear differential equation considering spherically symmetric trap. The analytical results for chemical potential and density of particles for BEC of 10 3 and 10 4 85 Rb atoms in a spherically symmetric trap are in very good agreement with the numerical results from MGP equation at low as well as at large scattering length i.e, at large gas-parameter region. The frequency of monopole mode calculated using the density of particles in the ground state (found out in higher order iterative method) are also in very good agreement with the existing numerical results. The difference between the analytical and numerical results decreases as the value of scattering length i.e, gas-parameter is increased.