Thermodynamic properties of ultracold Bose gas: transition exponents and universality

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates thermodynamic properties of non-interacting and interacting ultracold bosons in harmonic traps across different dimensions, revealing universal transition exponents characterizing quasi phase transitions.

Contribution

It provides the first numerical calculation of transition exponents for ultracold bosons, demonstrating their universality across system sizes and interaction types.

Findings

Transition exponents are independent of system size.

Quasi phase transitions are observed in all dimensions.

Universality of transition exponents is confirmed.

Abstract

We report exact numerical calculation of chemical potential, condensate fraction and specific heat of $N$ non-interacting bosons confined in an isotropic harmonic oscillator trap in one, two and three dimensions, as also for interacting bosons in a 3D trap. Quasi phase transitions are observed in all these cases, including one-dimension, as shown by a rapid change of all the thermodynamic quantities at the transition point. The change becomes more rapid as $N$ increases in 2D and 3D cases. However with increase in $N$, the sudden change in the nature of specific heat, gets gradually wiped out in 1D, while it becomes more drastic in 2D and 3D. The sudden change in the nature of condensate fraction and chemical potential as $N$ increases becomes more drastic even in 1D. Defining transition exponents, which characterize the nature of a thermodynamic quantity at the transition point of a quasi phase transition, we evaluate them by careful numerical calculation very near the transition temperature. These exponents are found to be independent of the size of the system and whether the bosons are interacting or not, demonstrating their universality property.