I review the Bose-Einstein condensation phase transition of dilute gases of cold atoms, for particle theorists acquainted with methods of field theory at finite temperature. I then discuss how the dependence of the phase transition temperature on the interaction strength can be computed in the large N approximation. 1 Phase Transitions in Hot Scalar Theories The standard example from particle physics of a scalar theory is the Higgs sector of electroweak theory, which has a phase transition (or a crossover) at a temperature of order the weak scale: say, a few hundred GeV or so. Let’s focus on pure scalar theory by imagining setting the gauge coupling constant gw to zero. At finite temperature, the Higgs picks up a thermal contribution #λT 2 to its effective mass, and the effective potential becomes roughly of the form V (φ) ∼ m 2 eff (T)φ2 + λφ 4 with m 2 eff (T) = −M2 + #λT 2. At sufficiently high temperature, the #λT 2 turns the potential from being concave down at the origin to concave up, and so restores the symmetry that is spontaneously broken at zero temperature.I review the Bose-Einstein condensation phase transition of dilute gases of cold atoms, for particle theorists acquainted with methods of field theory at finite temperature. I then discuss how the dependence of the phase transition temperature on the interaction strength can be computed in the large N approximation. 1 Phase Transitions in Hot Scalar Theories The standard example from particle physics of a scalar theory is the Higgs sector of electroweak theory, which has a phase transition (or a crossover) at a temperature of order the weak scale: say, a few hundred GeV or so. Let’s focus on pure scalar theory by imagining setting the gauge coupling constant gw to zero. At finite temperature, the Higgs picks up a thermal contribution #λT 2 to its effective mass, and the effective potential becomes roughly of the form V (φ) ∼ m 2 eff (T)φ2 + λφ 4 with m 2 eff (T) = −M2 + #λT 2. At sufficiently high temperature, the #λT 2 turns the potential from being concave down at the origin to concave up, and so restores the symmetry that is spontaneously broken at zero temperature.

Jan 1, 20000 citations

Large- N approximation for one- and two-component dilute Bose gases

Chih-Chun Chien, Fred Cooper, Eddy Timmermans

We discuss the mean-field theories obtained from the leading order in a large- $N$ approximation for one- and two-component dilute Bose gases. For a one-component Bose gas, this approximation has the following properties: the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) phase transition is second order but the critical temperature ${T}_{c}$ is not shifted from the noninteracting gas value ${T}_{0}$ . The spectrum of excitations in the BEC phase resembles the Bogoliubov dispersion with the usual coupling constant replaced by the running coupling constant which depends on both temperature and momentum. We then study two-component Bose gases with both inter- and intraspecies interactions and focus on the stability of the mixture state above ${T}_{c}$ . Our mean-field approximation predicts an instability from the mixture state to a phase-separated state when the ratio of the interspecies interaction strength to the intraspecies interaction strength (assuming equal strength for both species) exceeds a critical value. At high temperature this is a structural transition and the global translational symmetry is broken. Our work complements previous studies on the instability of the mixture phase in the presence of BEC.We discuss the mean-field theories obtained from the leading order in a large-$N$ approximation for one- and two-component dilute Bose gases. For a one-component Bose gas, this approximation has the following properties: the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) phase transition is second order but the critical temperature ${T}_{c}$ is not shifted from the noninteracting gas value ${T}_{0}$. The spectrum of excitations in the BEC phase resembles the Bogoliubov dispersion with the usual coupling constant replaced by the running coupling constant which depends on both temperature and momentum. We then study two-component Bose gases with both inter- and intraspecies interactions and focus on the stability of the mixture state above ${T}_{c}$. Our mean-field approximation predicts an instability from the mixture state to a phase-separated state when the ratio of the interspecies interaction strength to the intraspecies interaction strength (assuming equal strength for both species) exceeds a critical value. At high temperature this is a structural transition and the global translational symmetry is broken. Our work complements previous studies on the instability of the mixture phase in the presence of BEC.

arXiv:1207.2391Physical Review AAug 29, 201215 citations

HOT TOPICS IN COLD GASES

Robert Seiringer

Since the first experimental realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in cold atomic gases in 1995 there has been a surge of activity in this field. Ingenious experiments have allowed us to probe matter close to zero temperature and reveal some of the fascinating effects quantum mechanics has bestowed on nature. It is a challenge for mathematical physicists to understand these various phenomena from first principles, that is, starting from the underlying many-body Schrödinger equation. Recent progress in this direction concerns mainly equilibrium properties of dilute, cold quantum gases. We shall explain some of the results in this article, and describe the mathematics involved in understanding these phenomena. Topics include the ground state energy and the free energy at positive temperature, the effect of interparticle interaction on the critical temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation, as well as the occurrence of superfluidity and quantized vortices in rapidly rotating gases.Since the first experimental realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in cold atomic gases in 1995 there has been a surge of activity in this field. Ingenious experiments have allowed us to probe matter close to zero temperature and reveal some of the fascinating effects quantum mechanics has bestowed on nature. It is a challenge for mathematical physicists to understand these various phenomena from first principles, that is, starting from the underlying many-body Schrödinger equation. Recent progress in this direction concerns mainly equilibrium properties of dilute, cold quantum gases. We shall explain some of the results in this article, and describe the mathematics involved in understanding these phenomena. Topics include the ground state energy and the free energy at positive temperature, the effect of interparticle interaction on the critical temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation, as well as the occurrence of superfluidity and quantized vortices in rapidly rotating gases.

arXiv:0908.3686International Congress on Mathematical Physics (ICMP)Mar 1, 20109 citations

Topics in the microscopic theory of Bose-Einstein condensates

Gordon Baym

We first review the microscopic characterization of Bose-Einstein condensation. We then discusses possibilities of fragmented condensates, where the single-particle density matrix has more than one macroscopic eigenvalue. Afterwards, we turn to several problems in which it is necessary to go beyond the Gross-Pitaevksii approximation to determine the physics of condensates, in particular, the dependence of the transition temperature on interaction strength, and the physics of the regime where the scattering length becomes comparable to or greater than the interparticle spacing.We first review the microscopic characterization of Bose-Einstein condensation. We then discusses possibilities of fragmented condensates, where the single-particle density matrix has more than one macroscopic eigenvalue. Afterwards, we turn to several problems in which it is necessary to go beyond the Gross-Pitaevksii approximation to determine the physics of condensates, in particular, the dependence of the transition temperature on interaction strength, and the physics of the regime where the scattering length becomes comparable to or greater than the interparticle spacing.

Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical PhysicsNov 23, 200116 citations

Functional renormalization for Bose-Einstein condensation

Stefan Floerchinger, CHRISTOF WETTERICH

We investigate Bose-Einstein condensation for interacting bosons at zero and nonzero temperature. Functional renormalization provides us with a consistent method to compute the effect of fluctuations beyond the Bogoliubov approximation. For three-dimensional dilute gases, we find an upper bound on the scattering length $a$ which is of the order of the microphysical scale---typically the range of the van der Waals interaction. In contrast to fermions near the unitary bound, no strong interactions occur for bosons with approximately pointlike interactions, thus explaining the high quantitative reliability of perturbation theory for most quantities. For zero temperature we compute the quantum phase diagram for bosonic quasiparticles with a general dispersion relation, corresponding to an inverse microphysical propagator with terms linear and quadratic in the frequency. We compute the temperature dependence of the condensate and particle density $n$ , and find for the critical temperature ${T}_{c}$ a deviation from the free theory, $\ensuremath{\Delta}{T}_{c}/{T}_{c}=2.1a{n}^{1/3}$. For the sound velocity at zero temperature we find very good agreement with the Bogoliubov result, such that it may be used to determine the particle density accurately.We investigate Bose-Einstein condensation for interacting bosons at zero and nonzero temperature. Functional renormalization provides us with a consistent method to compute the effect of fluctuations beyond the Bogoliubov approximation. For three-dimensional dilute gases, we find an upper bound on the scattering length $a$ which is of the order of the microphysical scale---typically the range of the van der Waals interaction. In contrast to fermions near the unitary bound, no strong interactions occur for bosons with approximately pointlike interactions, thus explaining the high quantitative reliability of perturbation theory for most quantities. For zero temperature we compute the quantum phase diagram for bosonic quasiparticles with a general dispersion relation, corresponding to an inverse microphysical propagator with terms linear and quadratic in the frequency. We compute the temperature dependence of the condensate and particle density $n$, and find for the critical temperature ${T}_{c}$ a deviation from the free theory, $\ensuremath{\Delta}{T}_{c}/{T}_{c}=2.1a{n}^{1/3}$. For the sound velocity at zero temperature we find very good agreement with the Bogoliubov result, such that it may be used to determine the particle density accurately.

arXiv:0801.2910Physical Review AMay 8, 200853 citations

Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Properties of Dilute Bose Gases

Oldenburg, Jakob Felix

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 $L^2$ -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. $\textit{Full-text embargoed until: 2026-01-01}$ 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 $L^2$-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. $\textit{Full-text embargoed until: 2026-01-01}$

Dec 9, 20250 citations

We discuss the mean-field theories obtained from the leading order in a large-

N

approximation for one- and two-component dilute Bose gases. For a one-component Bose gas, this approximation has the following properties: the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) phase transition is second order but the critical temperature

{T}_{c}

is not shifted from the noninteracting gas value

{T}_{0}

. The spectrum of excitations in the BEC phase resembles the Bogoliubov dispersion with the usual coupling constant replaced by the running coupling constant which depends on both temperature and momentum. We then study two-component Bose gases with both inter- and intraspecies interactions and focus on the stability of the mixture state above

{T}_{c}

. Our mean-field approximation predicts an instability from the mixture state to a phase-separated state when the ratio of the interspecies interaction strength to the intraspecies interaction strength (assuming equal strength for both species) exceeds a critical value. At high temperature this is a structural transition and the global translational symmetry is broken. Our work complements previous studies on the instability of the mixture phase in the presence of BEC.

a

which is of the order of the microphysical scale---typically the range of the van der Waals interaction. In contrast to fermions near the unitary bound, no strong interactions occur for bosons with approximately pointlike interactions, thus explaining the high quantitative reliability of perturbation theory for most quantities. For zero temperature we compute the quantum phase diagram for bosonic quasiparticles with a general dispersion relation, corresponding to an inverse microphysical propagator with terms linear and quadratic in the frequency. We compute the temperature dependence of the condensate and particle density

n

, and find for the critical temperature

{T}_{c}

a deviation from the free theory, $\ensuremath{\Delta}{T}_{c}/{T}_{c}=2.1a{n}^{1/3}$. For the sound velocity at zero temperature we find very good agreement with the Bogoliubov result, such that it may be used to determine the particle density accurately.

L^2

-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.

\textit{Full-text embargoed until: 2026-01-01}