Criterion for Bose-Einstein condensation for particles in traps

C. J. Pethick and L. P. Pitaevskii
Phys. Rev. A 62, 033609 – Published 15 August 2000
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Abstract

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.

  • Received 24 March 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.62.033609

©2000 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

C. J. Pethick1 and L. P. Pitaevskii2,3

  • 1NORDITA, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
  • 2Department of Physics, University of Trento, I-38050 Povo (Trento), Italy
  • 3Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems, 117334 Moscow, Russia

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Vol. 62, Iss. 3 — September 2000

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