Bose-Einstein condensation of a finite number of particles trapped in one or three dimensions
Wolfgang KetterleDepartment of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139N. J. van DrutenDepartment of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
1996en
ABI
Abstract
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of an ideal gas is investigated for a finite number of particles. In three dimensions, we find a transition temperature which is lower than in the thermodynamic limit. Lowering the dimension increases the transition temperature and is therefore favorable for BEC. This is in contrast to the standard result obtained in the thermodynamic limit which states that BEC is not possible in, e.g., a one-dimensional (1D) harmonic potential. As a result, 1D atom traps, such as radially tightly confining magnetic traps or optical dipole traps, are promising for studying BEC. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Identifiers
Citations and references
Cited by 20 references