Statistical properties of the momentum occupation numbers of the Tonks-Girardeau gas in a harmonic trap

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the momentum occupation number fluctuations of the Tonks-Girardeau gas in a harmonic trap, revealing suppressed correlations and a crossover in distribution shapes, with implications for cold atom experiments.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of momentum fluctuations and correlations in the Tonks-Girardeau gas, including finite temperature effects and distribution crossover behaviors.

Findings

Correlations between opposite momentum states are suppressed.

Distribution of momentum occupation exhibits a crossover from non-trivial to exponential.

Negative correlations observed for small momenta.

Abstract

We compute the fluctuations of the number of bosons with a given momentum for the Tonks-Girardeau gas at zero and finite temperature in a harmonic trap. We show that correlations between opposite momentum states $p$, which is an important fingerprint of long range order in weakly interacting Bose systems are suppressed. Non trivial correlations, including negative correlations are observed for momenta smaller or of the order of the inverse radius of the gas. The full distribution of the number of bosons with momentum $p$ exhibits an interesting crossover from a non trivial distribution at zero momentum to an exponential distribution. The distribution of the quasi-condensate occupation is also studied. Experimental relevance of our findings for recent cold atoms experiments are discussed.