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arXiv:cond-mat/9705050 · Physical Review Letters

Do Attractive Bosons Condense?

Nicola K. Wilkin, J. M. F. Gunn, R. Smith

Published Mar 16, 1998• 263 citations
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Abstract

Motivated by experiments on Bose atoms in traps which have attractive interactions (e.g., ${}^{7}\mathrm{Li}$), we consider two models which may be solved exactly. We construct the ground states subject to the constraint that the system is rotating with angular momentum proportional to the number of atoms. In a conventional system this would lead to quantized vortices; here, for attractive interactions, we find that the angular momentum is absorbed by the center of mass motion. Moreover, the state is uncondensed and is an example of a ``fragmented'' condensate discussed by Nozi\`eres and Saint James. The same models with repulsive interactions are fully condensed in the thermodynamic limit.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.80.2265

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Motivated by experiments on Bose atoms in traps which have attractive interactions (e.g., 7Li{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}7Li), we consider two models which may be solved exactly. We construct the ground states subject to the constraint that the system is rotating with angular momentum proportional to the number of atoms. In a conventional system this would lead to quantized vortices; here, for attractive interactions, we find that the angular momentum is absorbed by the center of mass motion. Moreover, the state is uncondensed and is an example of a ``fragmented'' condensate discussed by Nozi`eres and Saint James. The same models with repulsive interactions are fully condensed in the thermodynamic limit.
We consider the criterion for Bose-Einstein condensation for particles in a harmonic trap. For a fixed angular momentum, the lowest energy state for a cloud of bosons with attractive interactions is the ground state of the cloud with all the angular momentum in the center-of-mass motion, and the one-particle reduced density matrix generally does not have a single large eigenvalue, but a number of them, suggesting that the state is an example of a fragmented condensate [N. K. Wilkin, J. M. F. Gunn, and R. A. Smith, Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 2265 (1998)]. We show that a convenient way to describe correlations in the system is by defining an internal one-particle reduced density matrix, in which the center-of-mass motion is eliminated, and that this has a single eigenvalue equal to the number of particles for the problem considered here. Our considerations indicate that care is necessary in formulating a criterion for Bose-Einstein condensation.
Using Perron-Frobenius theorem, we prove that the results by Wilkin, Gunn and Smith [1] for the ground states of N Bose atoms rotating at the angular momentum L in a harmonic atomic trap with frequency omega interacting via attractive delta^2(r) forces, are valid for a broad class of predominantly attractive interactions V(r), not necessarily attractive for any r. The sufficient condition for the interaction is that all the two-body matrix elements allowed by the conservation of angular momentum k+l = m+n, are negative. This class includes, in particular, the Gaussian attraction of arbitrary radius, -1/r - Coulomb and log(r)-Coulomb forces, as well as all the short-range R << omega^{-1/2} interactions satisfying inequality int d^2r V(r) < 0. There is no condensation at L>> 1, and the angular momentum is concentrated in the collective ``center-of-mass'' mode.
Bose-Einstein condensation is a quantum statistical phase transition which was theoretically predicted almost a hundred years ago. After years of seminal research, physicists realized the first almost ideal Bose-Einstein condensates in ultracold dilute atomic gases in 1995. Since then, the theoretical and experimental methods concerning such systems have been developing rapidly, and many fascinating phenomena have been found in these novel quantum systems.\n\nBose-Einstein condensation occurs in a system consisting of massive bosons when a single quantum state becomes macroscopically occupied as the temperature is lowered below the transition temperature. In general, condensates consisting of repulsively interacting bosons exhibit superfluidity: Particle currents can flow in the system without dissipation and viscosity. Moreover, the velocity fields of condensates have to be irrotational, which severely restricts the rotational characteristics of these systems. Apart from the center of mass motion, the system may carry angular momentum in the form of elementary excitations or so-called quantized vortices.\n\nThis Thesis is a theoretical study of subjects related to stability and dynamics of quantized vortices in dilute atomic Bose-Einstein condensates. The precession and instability of off-centered vortices in trapped condensates is investigated both in the zero-temperature limit and at finite temperatures. Dynamical stability of multiply quantized vortices and vortex clusters is studied in axisymmetric trap geometries. Splitting of energetically and dynamically unstable multiply quantized vortices into singly quantized vortices is also studied. Finally, as a separate subject, tunneling of a condensate through a potential barrier is investigated. Majority of this work relies on numerical methods for solving the Gross-Pitaevskii and Bogoliubov equations, which are of central importance in the study of dilute atomic Bose-Einstein condensates.
This thesis contains theoretical studies of weakly interacting, trapped Bose-Einstein condensed gases. The main emphasis is on the rotational properties of these systems. A typical Bose-Einstein condensate reacts to external rotation by forming singly quantized vortices. By the word ”typical” we refer to a condensate with repulsive interparticle interactions and with a frozen spin degree of freedom. However, there are some atomic species for which the low-energy interactions are attractive. Moreover, the tuning of different condensate properties is relatively easy. For example, there are ways to experimentally change the effective interaction from repulsive to attractive. For an attractively interacting condensate the vortex is not the only possible rotational state but the sample may also experience rotation through its center of mass. In the first part of the thesis, we analyze some properties of a rotating attractive Bose gas at the zero temperature limit. First, we note that in order to maintain energetical stability, the gas has to be rotated in an external trap which is steeper than a harmonic trap. We study the system in an anharmonic quadratic + quartic potential. The rotating ground state phase-space is determined with analytical and numerical methods. If the interactions are strong enough, the rotating ground state appears to be a state with the rotating center of mass. On the other hand, at the limit of weak interactions the system experiences rotation by forming a multiply quantized vortex. We also determine the spectrum of elementary excitations for these quantum many-particle states. We find that the broken symmetry of the center of mass rotating state induces an additional zero-energy (Goldstone) mode and that the small oscillations of the ground state exhibit the decoupling between the center of mass and relative motions. If the spin of the atoms is allowed to change freely, a rich variety of topological excitations in condensates can be studied. External rotation is one of the tools for examining the excitations in spinor condensates. In a spinless scalar condensate the appearance of a quantized vortex is manifested by the vortex line in which the condensate density vanishes. In the plane perpendicular to the vortex line, one speaks of the vortex core for the density minimum. We study the properties of slowly rotated F = 1 spinor condensates and show that for ferromagnetic interactions the ground state is a coreless vortex. While the individual spin components may carry ordinary vortices the overall density of the system is coreless. We also study a method to create a point-like monopole structure in a ferromagnetic condensate by suitably imprinting vortices and solitons for different spin components of the condensate.
The ground state and its structure for a rotating, harmonically trapped N-boson system with a weak repulsive contact interaction are studied as the angular momentum L increases up to 3N. We show that the ground state is generally a fragmented condensate due to angular momentum conservation. In response to an (arbitrarily weak) asymmetric perturbation of the trap, however, the fragmented ground state can be transformed into a single condensate state. We manifest this intrinsic instability by calculating the conditional probability distributions, which show patterns analogous to the boson density distributions predicted by mean-field theory.
The ground state properties of strongly rotating bosons confined in an asymmetric anharmonic potential exhibit a split density distribution. However, the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of this split structure remain largely unexplored. Given that rotation is responsible for the breakup of the bosonic cloud, we investigate the out-of-equilibrium dynamics by abruptly changing the rotation frequency. Our study offers insights into the dynamics of trapped Bose-Einstein condensates in both symmetric and asymmetric anharmonic potentials under different rotation quench scenarios. In a rotationally symmetric trap, angular momentum is a good quantum number. Therefore, a rotation quench has no impact on the density distribution. In contrast, the absence of angular momentum conservation in asymmetric traps results in more complex dynamics. This allows rotation quenches to either inject into or extract angular momentum from the system. We observe and analyze these intricate dynamics both for the mean-field condensed and the many-body fragmented systems. The dynamical evolution of the condensed system and the fragmented system exhibits similarities in several observables during small rotation quenches. However, these similarities diverge notably for larger quenches. Additionally, we investigate the formation and the impact of the vortices on the angular momentum dynamics of the evolving split density. All in all, our findings offer valuable insights into the dynamics of trapped interacting bosons under different rotation quenches.