Past exam of the advanced quantum theory: path integrals and many-particle physics course of the University of Oxford / 2024 / 2 / d / Solution

The coherent state in the zero mode has mean occupation number $N_0$. The other occupation numbers follow from part (c), giving exactlyImpose the fixed mean particle number $⟨\hat{N}⟩=N$ by choosingHere $D$ is the quantum depletion of a Bose condensate. The approximation requires $0\le D\ll N$, so $N_0$ remains positive and macroscopically large. The specified coherent state and multimode squeezed vacuum are not exact eigenstates of the total number operator; $N$ in this variational construction is their prescribed mean particle number.

Write $P={\sum }_{\mathbf{k}\ne 0}{s}_k{c}_k$. Substituting into the retained part of the interaction energy before truncating givesThe last two terms quadratic in $D,P$ have no explicit large-$N$ 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 $\rho =N/V=N/L^3$,Replacing $N_0$ by $N$ at the outset would give the wrong coefficient $2{\sinh }^2{\theta }_k$: expanding the leading condensate interaction energy supplies the necessary subtraction.

The printed definition $\rho =N/L$ is an error. In three dimensions the contact interaction coupling $u$ has units of energy times volume, so $uN/L$ does not even have units of energy. There is a direct counterexample with no depletion: when ${\theta }_k=0$, the specified coherent state has exactly $⟨H_{\mathrm{int}}⟩=u{N}^2/(2L^3)$. In fixed length and energy units, $L=2$, $u=1$ and $N=100$ give $625$, whereas the printed $u\rho N/2$ with $\rho =N/L$ gives $2500$. The requested formula and the minimization in part (e) hold with $\rho =N/L^3$.