On the role of hyperfine-interactions-mediated Zeeman effect in the condensation temperature shift of trapped atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We discuss the effect of interatomic interactions on the condensation temperature $T_c$ of a laboratory atomic Bose-Einstein condensate under the influence of an external trapping magnetic field. We predict that accounting for hyperfine interactions mediated Zeeman term in the mean-field approximation produces, in the case of the $403 \, G$ Feshbach resonance in the $|F,m_F> = |1,1>$ hyperfine state of a $^{39}K$ condensate, with $F$ the total spin of the atom, an experimentally observed (and not yet explained) shift in the condensation temperature $\Delta T_{c}/T_{c}^{0}=b^{*}_0+b^{*}_1 (a/\lambda_{T}) + b^{*}_2 (a/\lambda_{T})^2$ with $b^{*}_0 \simeq 0.0002$, $b^{*}_1 \simeq -3.4$ and $b^{*}_2 \simeq 47$, where $a$ is the s-wave scattering length, and $\lambda_T$ is the thermal wavelength at $T_{c}^{0}$. Generic expressions for the coefficients $b^*_0$, $b^*_1$ and $b^*_2$ are also obtained, which can be used to predict the temperature shift for other Feshbach resonances of $^{39}K$ or other atomic condensates.