Beyond Gross-Pitaevskii Mean Field Theory

TL;DR

This paper reviews advanced theories beyond the Gross-Pitaevskii Equation for Bose-Einstein Condensates, incorporating fluctuations, thermal effects, and quantum phenomena to better understand complex experimental scenarios.

Contribution

It provides an overview of recent theoretical extensions to GPE, explicitly including fluctuations and dynamical couplings for weakly-interacting atomic Bose gases.

Findings

Inclusion of fluctuations improves modeling of BEC dynamics.

Thermal and quantum effects are essential for understanding vortices and solitons.

Theories extend to critical regimes and condensate formation processes.

Abstract

A large number of effects related to the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) can be understood in terms of lowest order mean field theory, whereby the entire system is assumed to be condensed, with thermal and quantum fluctuations completely ignored. Such a treatment leads to the Gross-Pitaevskii Equation (GPE) used extensively throughout this book. Although this theory works remarkably well for a broad range of experimental parameters, a more complete treatment is required for understanding various experiments, including experiments with solitons and vortices. Such treatments should include the dynamical coupling of the condensate to the thermal cloud, the effect of dimensionality, the role of quantum fluctuations, and should also describe the critical regime, including the process of condensate formation. The aim of this Chapter is to give a brief but insightful overview of various recent theories, which extend beyond the GPE. To keep the discussion brief, only the main notions and conclusions will be presented. This Chapter generalizes the presentation of Chapter 1, by explicitly maintaining fluctuations around the condensate order parameter. While the theoretical arguments outlined here are generic, the emphasis is on approaches suitable for describing single weakly-interacting atomic Bose gases in harmonic traps. Interesting effects arising when condensates are trapped in double-well potentials and optical lattices, as well as the cases of spinor condensates, and atomic-molecular coupling, along with the modified or alternative theories needed to describe them, will not be covered here.