A normalized bosonic field coherent state with has . For a normal-ordered contact-interacting Hamiltonian, its energy expectation is . Minimizing at fixed mean particle number gives the stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation. This mean-field state has number fluctuations and does not include the pair correlations responsible for quantum depletion.
A local two-body and three-body mean-field energy density generates cubic and quintic terms in the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. Variation with respect to gives , with . A uniform stationary state's chemical potential is . Its positive-compressibility condition is . If , scaling amplitude by and distance by gives coefficients , and . Negative chemical potential requires a different sign in the dimensionless linear term.
In a dilute gas, Bose-Einstein condensation makes a single one-particle state hold a substantial fraction of the bosons. This is a population effect: cooling reduces the number that the excited energy eigenstates can accommodate at thermal equilibrium. The surplus accumulates in a Bose-Einstein condensate. For an ideal gas the occupied mode is the trap ground state; interactions can deform that mode, as described by the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. Dilute does not mean classical: a small number density can still give overlapping thermal de Broglie wavelengths at sufficiently low temperature.
The appeal is that changing the trap changes a calculable Quantum Hamiltonian, while absorption imaging makes its population distribution visible. The Bose condensation in a three-dimensional harmonic trap below turns density of states into a prediction for a critical temperature and condensate fraction. These are separate questions from measuring matter-wave coherence or superfluidity.
Eric A. Cornell and Carl E. Wieman's joint lecture emphasizes the competition between useful elastic collisions, which restore thermal equilibrium during evaporative cooling, and collisions that remove or heat the trapped sample. A long trap lifetime alone is insufficient: reequilibration must keep up with evaporation.[ref]
Figure 1.
Functional stages of the 1995 dilute-gas condensation experiments
. Original schematic of preparation, trapping, evaporative cooling, release and absorption imaging. The two trapping routes differ; the boxes represent functions rather than physical component locations. Details.
For the pumped Gross–Pitaevskii equation with gain term , put . The physical superfluid velocity is . The imaginary part gives the displayed number balance, while the real part gives . These Madelung equations hold away from density zeros. The source term permits stationary density with nonzero current divergence; local gain need not balance local loss pointwise.
Take normalized so that is condensate density. The coherent-field expectation of a dilute contact-interacting Bose Hamiltonian gives the grand-potential functional . Its leading microscopic coefficients are therefore those displayed, with positive s-wave scattering length for repulsion. Varying with respect to gives the stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation. Thermal and quantum fluctuations can renormalize the coefficients; these mean-field identities are not exact universal critical coefficients.
The Gross–Pitaevskii equation describes a dilute interacting condensate through a complex order parameter , normalized so that is number density. Repulsive contact interactions have . In a frame rotating at the condensate frequency, the operator includes , with chemical potential . It is generated by a Hamiltonian functional; its homogeneous positive-density state has when .
A repulsive condensate next to an impenetrable planar wall has Dirichlet boundary condition . Writing reduces its stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation to . The bulk conditions give and hence the displayed number density. Omitting describes normalized number density, not dimensional number density.
Healing length 2026-10-06
The healing length of a repulsive homogeneous condensate is the length at which density-gradient kinetic energy and interaction energy balance. The displayed convention sets the dimensionless Laplacian coefficient to one in the stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation. A hard-wall number density profile has width ; definitions without the factor occur, so the equation and convention must be specified.
For the normalized Hartree product state , applying the bosonic annihilation operator gives . Taking the inner product proves the displayed factorization of the one-body density matrix. Its diagonal is the total number density in this approximation. For a real positive orbital, . Restoring the kinetic energy in a Gross–Pitaevskii equation can smooth a Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate edge while retaining this factorization. Describing quantum depletion of a Bose condensate additionally requires noncondensate mode occupations and their contribution to the one-body density matrix.
Use the condensate wavefunction convention , so is the number density and is a normalized one-particle orbital. The contact interaction strength is for dilute atoms with s-wave scattering length . The chemical potential fixes the stationary time dependence and enforces normalization when minimizing the energy. The Gross–Pitaevskii equation follows from an energy functional that contains the pair-counting factor :
Varying gives the stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation; the interaction contribution to that equation is , without the factor .
For the broadening discussed here assume repulsive interactions, . The Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate neglects the gradient kinetic energy compared with the trapping and interaction energies. At fixed spatial scale, increasing increases the mean-field potential. Expansion then reduces the kinetic energy further: for a cloud radius , its scale per atom is , whereas the trap energy scale is . Their ratio decreases as . In the weak-interaction limit the kinetic energy instead balances confinement, giving the Gaussian wave packet ground state of the quantum harmonic oscillator.
The spherical Thomas–Fermi condensate has
Integrating this density gives . Thus
At fixed , stronger repulsion produces a wider, lower wavefunction: the Gaussian wave packet crosses over towards the square root of an inverted parabola, with an almost flat central region and a steeper outer drop. The density is the inverted parabola; the wavefunction is its square root. The exact wavefunction remains smooth and has a tail, since kinetic energy cannot be neglected near the Thomas–Fermi condensate edge rounding region. The healing length must be small compared with the cloud size in the bulk. Attractive interactions would not follow this large- expansion argument.
The original plot compares the noninteracting endpoint with two normalized repulsive spherical Thomas–Fermi condensate profiles. The latter are asymptotic shapes, rather than exact intermediate solutions of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. Each has the same integrated atom number; labels the illustrative interaction strengths.
Figure 1.
Condensate broadening
. Details.
Choose real and positive. The Gaussian integral gives
The three zero-point energies add for each atom. The ideal-gas chemical potential is a one-atom energy; the total energy includes all atoms.
For weak interactions, the first-order correction in perturbation theory is the energy functional of the contact interaction evaluated on the unperturbed Gaussian wave packet. The integral needed is
Consequently the Gaussian interaction energy of a trapped condensate is
Here . These are the mean-field expressions consistent with the supplied equation and . Exact first-order perturbation theory for precisely atoms in one orbital replaces by through the number of distinct pairs; this distinction is negligible in the large- regime of the crossover estimate.
To judge the ideal-gas approximation, compare the interaction energy with the total ideal energy, or compare the interaction energy per atom with :
Thus the crossover from Gaussian to Thomas–Fermi condensate is governed by : perturbation theory is reliable for , while the regime of the Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate requires . The characteristic crossover number is ; there is no sharp critical atom number here. If one specifically defines crossover by using the weak-interaction expression, it gives . That prefactor is a convention-dependent estimate extrapolated to the edge of perturbation theory, not a phase transition. Comparing itself to a single would incorrectly omit a factor of .
For the numerical estimate use and . Then
The particular equality would instead give about atoms. These quantify different choices within a smooth crossover; a well-developed spherical Thomas–Fermi condensate profile requires going substantially beyond the characteristic scale.
For the Bogoliubov spectrum, define and . For repulsive interactions and ,
Thus the low-momentum excitations are gapless phonons and the high-momentum branch approaches free-particle curvature. The crossover occurs when kinetic and interaction energy are comparable. The Landau criterion follows because an obstacle moving at velocity can supply energy to an excitation. Here
This is the homogeneous phonon kinematic threshold, not a guarantee that every perturbation dissipates immediately above it.
Figure 1.
Bogoliubov phonon-to-particle crossover and the local stirring threshold during slow atom loss
. Details.
In two dimensions, has units of inverse area and has units of energy times area. Therefore is dimensionless. Neglecting the kinetic term in the Gross–Pitaevskii equation, with positive coupling, gives
with outside the radius in the Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate. Multiplication gives
The sharp edge is an approximation; the neglected gradient term rounds it over a healing length scale.
Using the local sound-speed criterion for circular condensate stirring, the moving beam has speed . The local interaction chemical potential is , so
The onset equality is and the permitted excitation condition is
This uses the beam speed as the local relative-flow scale. A finite hole can distort the surrounding flow or nucleate vortices, so the result is the requested local phonon estimate, not a universal necessary condition for all experimental stirring.
For the loss-driven onset of condensate stirring, first integrate the density:
At fixed coupling and trap frequency, and . Hence while stays fixed. For , threshold requires . Starting at ,
At onset, , and the beam is still inside the cloud. Excitations become kinematically allowed just beyond this equality, provided the stipulated adiabatic regime of the Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate remains valid.
Write , , and take . The Bogoliubov spectrum is gapless and positive for . Its small- and large-momentum limits are
The low-energy excitations are collective sound modes; high-energy excitations approach particles with a mean-field energy offset. With healing length and ,
The crossover occurs at of order one, not at an additional energy gap.
The critical velocity of a homogeneous condensate follows because the Landau criterion compares an excitation energy with the energy that flow can release by transferring its momentum. Creating a mode is energetically possible when . For this isotropic spectrum,
The infimum is the long-wavelength speed of sound. This tests energetic stability against the stated excitations; it is not a calculation of a dissipation rate or a universal vortex-nucleation threshold.
For an external potential varying slowly on the healing scale, the Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate neglects density-gradient kinetic energy in the stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation. In occupied regions it gives
Here is the appropriate local number density; in the ring it is a linear density and is the one-dimensional coupling. This is the local-density sound speed of a condensate. The formula applies where , not in an empty region where its square root would be imaginary.
Normalize the condensate order parameter to the atom number:
up to an arbitrary constant phase. A wavefunction normalized to one instead has amplitude , with then providing density. Acting with gives angular momentum per atom and in total for the uniform ring. The superfluid velocity is
The interaction chemical potential is ; a flowing uniform state also has the constant kinetic contribution to its total chemical potential. Its speed of sound is set by the interaction term. Applying gives
For a uniform ring condensate, this is the continuum phonon criterion used here. Quantization of the available excitation wavelengths in a very small ring can modify a finite-size threshold.
For the nonrotating equilibrium with a raised left half, let and be the bulk linear densities. Within the same Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate,
When both halves are occupied, normalization fixes
and therefore
These expressions require . Beyond that threshold, extending them would give a negative left density and is unphysical. Instead the left bulk empties, all atoms occupy a segment of length , and
At equality the left bulk just reaches zero density. kinetic energy rounds the interface and produces tails beyond the Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate, so an exactly empty half is the idealized bulk result.
A nonconstant breaks rotational symmetry:
Consequently angular momentum is no longer a good quantum number, and an eigenfunction need not be times a constant amplitude. Nevertheless, while the order parameter is nonzero around the whole ring, single-valuedness requires
The integer is a phase winding of a condensate, not an assertion that the inhomogeneous state remains an angular-momentum eigenstate. A superfluid phase slip can change it if the amplitude vanishes locally.
Conservation of particles gives . For steady density the one-dimensional particle current is constant. Since the two halves have equal lengths,
The current bottleneck in an inhomogeneous condensate occurs because a lower-density region has faster flow at the same current; it also has a smaller speed of sound. This makes the raised half the limiting region.
For the equilibrium approximation gives
The winding condition and equal lengths require
Thus the left-hand sound-speed test is
The right-hand condition is only , so it is less restrictive.
Figure 1.
phonon stability and the density bottleneck in a split ring
. Original dimensionless dispersion and piecewise bulk density/velocity profiles for the specified . The ring is unwrapped into its angular coordinate; no source diagram is reproduced. Narrow transition regions are omitted in the bulk approximation. Details.
This local sound-speed estimate for ring-flow stability uses the step-potential equilibrium in a ring condensate densities together with the local sound-speed test, as suggested by the preceding approximations. A quantitatively self-consistent finite-current solution also includes and the quantum pressure of a condensate in the stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation, allowing flow to change the density. Smooth steps suppress reflection but do not alone remove those terms. The result is the stated local-density estimate; it should not be promoted to an exact stability theorem for every finite interacting ring.
Let the uniform background number density be and set . The subtraction of this chemical potential requires a phase rotation as well as a rescaling:
Substitution into the physical Gross–Pitaevskii equation gives
Consequently the requested coefficients follow from
The length unit is the specified healing length. Removing tildes produces the paper's dimensionless equation; in particular the coefficient of its time derivative fixes , not its reciprocal. Without the phase rotation the linear term would not appear.
The dimensionless ground state is for any constant phase , conventionally . Its subtracted energy is proportional to , which is nonnegative and vanishes for this state. In physical variables it has density and phase rotating at .
The Hamiltonian functional is
Treating the field and its complex conjugate as independent variables, and integrating the gradient term by parts with periodic, decaying or fixed-field boundary conditions, gives
Thus is the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. The factor in the interaction energy avoids counting each pair twice.
At prescribed particle number, minimize subject to . Introducing the chemical potential as a Lagrange multiplier, the variation of vanishes at a ground-state profile , proving
The corresponding time-dependent field is . A solution of this stationary equation is only a candidate ground state; the ground state is the minimizer among all fields satisfying the normalization. For the uniform repulsive gas in a periodic volume, the gradient energy is nonnegative and , so the constant-density, constant-phase state is indeed the minimum. The uniform-background solutions below assume and a positive background density.
For a straight unit-winding quantum vortex, the real radial amplitude satisfies
In the frame translating with the ring, put and , where is independent of the angular coordinate. The cylindrical Laplacian has the exact identity
After inserting this into the translating Gross–Pitaevskii equation, subtract the straight-vortex equation. Because is real,
and direct expansion of the nonlinear difference gives
Thus the exact ring-on-line perturbation equation, including its quadratic and cubic terms, is
The two appearances of are responsible for the coefficient multiplying inside the bracket. No small-amplitude approximation is needed for this identity.
Let be the normalized stationary profile. Multiplying its stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation by , integrating and integrating the kinetic term by parts yields
This is not simply : the quartic contribution is twice its contribution to that energy per particle. For an infinite periodic system one uses one cell and the corresponding cell particle number, or equivalently average densities.
At fixed lattice spacing, mean density , coupling and temperature, the commonly used condensate compressibility in an optical lattice is
If compressibility means the thermodynamic volume response instead, the Gibbs-Duhem equation at zero temperature gives . Stating the convention removes this factor-of-density ambiguity; the lattice-depth derivative has the same sign at fixed .
For the stable repulsive ground-band Bose-Einstein condensate, the intended trend is for increasing nonzero lattice depth, with mean density held fixed. Deeper wells localize the field, enhancing the repulsive interaction response. To quantify this, in the weak-interaction band approximation write , with the cell average of equal to one. Perturbation in gives
In deep wells the localized orbital is approximately a normalized Gaussian of width . Neglecting interwell overlap, , hence . This explicitly establishes the sign in that controlled regime; the repulsive ground-band calculation describes the broader trend.
The sign statement needs the repulsive, stable ground-band interpretation, not merely the literal assumption . It also need not be a strictly nonzero derivative at : at weak interaction , with normalization corrected at second order, gives and a zero initial slope. A leading density-dominated Thomas–Fermi approximation for a condensate with density positive everywhere gives and no depth dependence of this response at that approximation's order. These limits do not justify a strict universal sign for every unspecified interaction and parameter regime.
Choose the amplitude real and positive locally, absorbing its phase into , and work away from vortex cores or other density zeros. Put and . Direct separation of the real and imaginary parts of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation gives the exact Madelung equations
For example, the imaginary part is , which proves the density equation after multiplication by . The real damping coefficient affects the phase balance rather than adding a particle source.
Using this continuity equation and ,
Taking a gradient of the phase equation gives the exact velocity equation
Now , , and is order one. The inertial and chemical-potential gradients are ; the double-gradient bulk term is ; and the quantum potential force contains three slow derivatives and is , provided stays bounded away from zero. Through order this proves the requested bulk-viscous limit of a material-density-damped condensate with
Adding a spatially constant value to does not affect the equation, so is an equivalent convention. The density and viscosity coefficients are in the equation's dimensionless units. The bulk viscosity term is the gradient of the divergence of the relative mass flux, not a shear-viscosity term. At density zeros the slow-amplitude expansion and the division by fail; there one must retain the original field equation.
Since each species number is separately conserved, minimize with two independent Lagrange multipliers. Variation with respect to each complex-conjugate field, with boundary terms removed, gives
These are the two stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equations; the time-dependent equilibrium fields are . The cross term contributes to each equation, with no factor two, while differentiating the self-interaction term cancels its factor . Separate number conservation does not require the two chemical potentials to be equal.
Introduce the translating coordinate and put . Then . Substitution in the Gross–Pitaevskii equation gives the stationary Gross–Pitaevskii solitary wave equation
The complex bulk field is fixed by far from the localized disturbance. Spatial derivatives in this equation are taken in the translating frame. There is no additional uniform temporal phase here because the normalization has already made the background stationary.
To first order, and . Equating real and imaginary parts of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation therefore gives
Differentiate the second equation in time and use the first to eliminate :
For a Fourier mode with , the dispersion relation is
This is the normalized Bogoliubov spectrum. At small wavenumber the positive branch has sound speed ; at large wavenumber it approaches the free-particle quadratic dispersion. The linear frequencies are real, confirming stability of the repulsive uniform bulk.