Bose-Einstein condensation

The physical process in which a Bose-Einstein condensate is formed.

When a gas of bosonic particles is cooled below a critical temperature, it condenses into a Bose-Einstein condensate. The condensate consists of a macroscopic number of particles, which are all in the ground state of the system. Bose-Einstein condensation is a phase transition, which does not depend on the specific interactions between particles. It is based on the indistinguishability and wave nature of particles, both of which are at the heart of quantum mechanics.

Basic phenomenon in ideal gas

In a simplified picture, particles in a gas may be regarded as quantum-mechanical wavepackets which have a spatial extent on the order of a thermal de Broglie wavelength, given by Eq. (1), where T is the
1.
temperature, m the mass of the particle, k_B is the Boltzmann constant, and ℏ is Planck's constant divided by 2π. The wavelength λ_dB can be regarded as the position uncertainty associated with the thermal momentum distribution of the particles. At high temperature, λ_dB is small, and the probability of finding two particles within this distance of each other is extremely low. Therefore, the indistinguishability of particles is not important, and a classical description applies (namely, Boltzmann statistics). When the gas is cooled to the point where λ_dB is comparable to the distance between particles, the individual wavepackets start to overlap and the indistinguishability of particles becomes crucial—an identity crisis can be said to occur. For fermions, the Pauli exclusion principle prevents two particles from occupying the same quantum state; whereas for bosons, quantum statistics (in this case, Bose-Einstein statistics) dramatically increases the probability of finding several particles in the same quantum state. The system undergoes a phase transition and forms a Bose-Einstein condensate, where a macroscopic number of particles occupy the lowest-energy quantum state. See also Boltzmann statistics; Exclusion principle; Phase transitions; Quantum mechanics.

Bose-Einstein condensation can be described intuitively in the following way: When the quantum-mechanical wave functions of bosonic particles spatially overlap, the matter waves start to oscillate in concert. A coherent matter wave forms that comprises all particles in the ground state of the system. This transition from disordered to coherent matter waves can be compared to the step from incoherent light to laser light. Indeed, atom lasers based on Bose-Einstein condensation have been realized. See also Coherence; Laser.

Experimental techniques

The phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation is responsible for the superfluidity of helium and for the superconductivity of an electron gas, which involves Bose-condensed electron pairs. However, these phenomena happen at high density, and their understanding requires a detailed treatment of the interactions. See also Superconductivity; Superfluidity.

The quest to realize Bose-Einstein condensation in a dilute weakly interacting gas focused on atomic gases. At ultralow temperatures, all atomic gases liquefy or solidify in thermal equilibrium. Keeping the gas at sufficiently low density can prevent this from occurring. Typical number densities of atoms between 10¹² and 10¹⁵ cm³ imply transition temperatures for Bose-Einstein condensation in the nanokelvin or microkelvin regime.

The realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in atomic gases required techniques to cool gases to such low temperatures, and atom traps to confine the gases at the required density and keep them away from the much warmer walls of the vacuum chamber. The experiments on alkali vapors (lithium, rubidium, and sodium) use several laser-cooling techniques as precooling, then hold the atoms in a magnetic trap and cool them further by forced evaporative cooling. For atomic hydrogen, the laser-cooling step is replaced by cryogenic cooling.

Macroscopic wave function

In superconductors and liquid helium, the existence of coherence and of a macroscopic wave function is impressively demonstrated through the Josephson effect. In the dilute atomic gases, the coherence has been demonstrated even more directly by interfering two Bose condensates. The interference fringes typically have a spacing of 15 μm, a huge length for matter waves. (In contrast, the matter wavelength of atoms at room temperature is only 0.05 nm, less than the size of the atoms.)