SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · cond-mat/9704095

Bose-Einstein condensation of finite number of confined particles

Abstract

The partition function and specific heat of a system consisting of a finite number of bosons confined in an external potential are calculated in canonical ensemble. Using the grand partition function as the generating function of the partition function, an iterative scheme is established for the calculation of the partition function of system with an arbitrary number of particles. The scheme is applied to finite number of bosons confined in isotropic and anisotropic parabolic traps and in rigid boxes. The specific heat as a function of temperature is studied in detail for different number of particles, different degrees of anisotropy, and different spatial dimensions. The cusp in the specific heat is taken as an indication of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC).It is found that the results corresponding to a large number of particles are approached quite rapidly as the number of bosons in the system increases. For large number of particles, results obtained within our iterative scheme are consistent with those of the semiclassical theory of BEC in an external potential based on the grand canonical treatment.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Wenji Deng, P. M. Hui. 1997-04-12. Bose-Einstein condensation of finite number of confined particles. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0038-1098(97)10030-8

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Spectral Representation for the Effective Macroscopic Response of a Polycrystal: Application to Third-Order Nonlinear Susceptibility

Erratum: In our paper, we show that the spectral representation for isotropic two-component composites also applies to uniaxial polycrystals. We have learned that this result was, in fact, first conjectured by G.W. Milton. While our derivation is more detailed, our result for the spectral function is the same as Milton's. We very much regret not having been aware of this work at the time of writing our paper. Original abstract: We extend the spectral theory used for the calculation of the effective linear response functions of composites to the case of a polycrystalline material with uniaxially anisotropic microscopic symmetry. As an application, we combine these results with a nonlinear decoupling approximation as modified by Ma et al., to calculate the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility of a uniaxial polycrystal, assuming that the effective dielectric function of the polycrystal can be calculated within the effective-medium approximation.

cond-mat

Towards quantum well hot hole lasers

It should be possible to improve hot-hole laser performance by moving from bulk materials to a quantum well structure. The extra design parameters enable us to alter the band structure by changing the crystal orientation of the growth direction; to use the well width to shift the subband offsets, enabling the effect of the LO phonon scattering cut-off to be controlled; and to use modulation doping to ensure a high hole concentration to increase the gain without the dopants being present in the gain region. We present the first simulations of THz quantum well hot-hole lasers that can produce inversion and optical gain.

cond-mat