For a weakly depleted homogeneous Bose gas with repulsive contact interaction, set and . A zero-mode coherent state times a two-mode squeezed vacuum for each opposite-momentum pair has mean particle number . Substitution of into the leading condensate interaction energy, followed by a consistent quadratic truncation, gives the displayed variational energy. Omitting this substitution loses the subtraction embodied in the number-conserving Bogoliubov quadratic Hamiltonian.
For each mode set and . If , choose . The mode contribution equals , proving a unique minimum . At fixed ultraviolet cutoff this lowers the energy relative to the uncorrelated condensate. The approximation requires small quantum depletion of a Bose condensate; an unregulated three-dimensional ground-state energy also requires renormalization of a three-dimensional dilute-gas contact coupling.
Interaction potential 2026-10-24
A function assigning energy to the separation of two particles. The common symmetric case is an even function, . Its average over pairs defines an interaction energy. If the Hessian matrix is bounded, the gradient is globally Lipschitz and grows at most linearly; its convolution with a probability measure therefore needs only a finite first absolute moment, even though the potential itself can require a second absolute moment.
Normalize the specified state by and write . Its zero mode is a coherent state, so any normally ordered product of zero-mode creation operators and annihilation operators can be evaluated using and . In particular , rather than , which would apply to a zero-mode number state.
Sort the momentum-space contact-interaction Hamiltonian by its number of zero-mode factors. Four such factors give . Three zero-mode factors and one nonzero momentum violate momentum conservation, so no such term survives. With two zero-mode factors there are three possibilities:
The sums over include both members of each opposite-momentum pair, consistently with the overall factor . Terms with one zero-mode factor contain three nonzero-mode factors; their expected values vanish in the centered multimode squeezed vacuum. Indeed each is linear in , and an odd product has zero vacuum expectation value. Terms with no zero-mode factors are independent of at fixed . Therefore
To evaluate these vacuum expectation values, use the inverse Bogoliubov transformation and its Hermitian adjoint:
Since , the only nonzero two-factor vacuum expectation value is . The bosonic squeezed-vacuum contractions are consequently
In particular the three requested quantities are , and , respectively. The minus sign in the pair vacuum expectation values comes from the inverse Bogoliubov transformation and is essential to lowering the interaction energy. Substitution yields
The coherent state in the zero mode has mean occupation number . The other occupation numbers follow from part (c), giving exactly
Impose the fixed mean particle number by choosing
Here is the quantum depletion of a Bose condensate. The approximation requires , so remains positive and macroscopically large. The specified coherent state and multimode squeezed vacuum are not exact eigenstates of the total number operator; in this variational construction is their prescribed mean particle number.
Write . Substituting into the retained part of the interaction energy before truncating gives
The last two terms quadratic in have no explicit large- factor when the Bogoliubov transformation parameters are held fixed, and are discarded along with the nonzero-mode quartic contribution already omitted in part (c). This is the same truncation that underlies the number-conserving Bogoliubov quadratic Hamiltonian. Thus, defining the physical number density correctly as ,
Replacing by at the outset would give the wrong coefficient : expanding the leading condensate interaction energy supplies the necessary subtraction.
The printed definition is an error. In three dimensions the contact interaction coupling has units of energy times volume, so does not even have units of energy. There is a direct counterexample with no depletion: when , the specified coherent state has exactly . In fixed length and energy units, , and give , whereas the printed with gives . The requested formula and the minimization in part (e) hold with .
Put for and , using . Since the zero mode has zero kinetic energy, the exact kinetic energy in this trial state is
Together with part (d), the fixed-mean-number Bogoliubov variational energy is
For repulsive contact interaction, , each . Using the double-angle hyperbolic-function identities,
so
The stationary point therefore satisfies
This is a minimum, not just a vanishing derivative. Define the positive Bogoliubov quasiparticle dispersion
At the displayed solution , and . Hence
The hyperbolic cosine has its unique minimum at zero, proving global minimization of each retained term. Treating equal-magnitude wavevectors together simply multiplies the same function by their multiplicity. At a fixed ultraviolet cutoff, the resulting energy change from is
Indeed . More directly, for small positive ,
The pair vacuum expectation value lowers the interaction energy at first order in , whereas the nonzero occupation number and its kinetic energy cost start at second order. The two-mode squeezed vacuum admixes opposite-momentum pairs into the condensate, introducing spatial correlations that reduce the chance of two bosons coinciding. These correlations lower repulsive contact interaction enough to outweigh the added kinetic energy. A small quantum depletion of a Bose condensate can therefore lower the energy below the uncorrelated condensate value.
Two qualifications delimit this result. First, the paper does not state the sign of . More generally a finite stable minimum exists only when for every retained nonzero mode; repulsion ensures this. For example, with in some mode, tends to as , so an unconditional minimum claim for arbitrary is false. Also the formula minimizes the truncated Bogoliubov theory energy, not the exact quartic Hamiltonian including its discarded terms, and it must remain in the regime of small quantum depletion of a Bose condensate.
Second, a three-dimensional unregulated contact interaction cannot give a finite absolute beyond-leading-order ground-state energy by this bare sum. For large , , whose three-dimensional sum has an ultraviolet divergence. A finite ultraviolet cutoff, or renormalization of a three-dimensional dilute-gas contact coupling matched to a physical scattering length, is needed. This does not alter the modewise minimization or the finite-cutoff lowering mechanism just derived.
Use an independent copy of under the product measure . Write , , and
Since the pushforward measure of under is , the interaction energy is
Two applications of the chain rule give
The factor is retained. This classical identity requires differentiation under the integral sign to be justified, just as in part (b). Bounded Hessian matrix of is sufficient, since is integrable; compactly supported endpoints are another sufficient case. The printed quadratic-growth condition alone does not provide this domination.
The failure can occur for the interaction energy too. Take the even interaction potential and replace the endpoint probability measures in part (b) by and . Keep the origin fixed and translate every other atom by one. This coupling is increasing on the line, hence is optimal: its assigned values extend to a nondecreasing transport map, which is the gradient of a convex function. Differences between translated atoms remain integers, so their mutual interaction vanishes. Only interactions with the origin contribute, giving , with from part (b). It therefore also lacks a finite classical second derivative at .
Define the barycenter of a measure by . Under , the mean displacement is , and optimality gives . Expanding the square under the product measure yields the variance identity for independent copies:
In the classical regime of part (c), the lower bound on the Hessian matrix of the interaction potential therefore gives
For equal barycenters, this becomes
For the full stated class of probability measures, prove the displacement convexity inequality directly. Pointwise strong convexity of gives
Integrating, including the in the interaction energy, and using the displayed variance identity for independent copies gives
All terms are finite by quadratic growth and finite second absolute moments. Equal barycenters give the claimed -displacement convexity. Also , so this metric geodesic remains in the prescribed fixed-mean class. Applying the same argument to subintervals proves the second derivative bound in the sense of distributions even when a classical derivative has not been justified. The mean restriction is natural: translating all particles together leaves their pairwise differences and hence the interaction energy unchanged.
Choose a uniform lower bound for the Hessian matrix of the confinement potential, so for every . A sufficient condition is
Indeed, convexity of gives the confinement energy inequality from part (b), now with possibly negative. Adding it to the equal-mean interaction energy inequality from part (d) gives
This proves positive displacement convexity on every class with fixed barycenter. In particular, if with , the sufficient condition is and one may take . Wherever classical second derivatives exist, the equivalent differential calculation is ; the integrated proof also covers the printed growth assumptions.