Bose-Einstein Condensation Temperature of a Homogeneous Weakly Interacting Bose Gas : PIMC study

TL;DR

This study uses Path Integral Monte Carlo simulations to accurately determine how weak interactions shift the Bose-Einstein condensation temperature in a homogeneous 3D Bose gas, clarifying discrepancies in previous results.

Contribution

It provides a more precise calculation of the interaction-induced shift in BEC transition temperature, resolving previous inconsistencies and confirming the coefficient with recent theoretical methods.

Findings

The coefficient c₁ is approximately 1.32 ± 0.14.

The temperature shift depends strongly on interaction strength.

Results align with recent Monte Carlo and perturbation theory studies.

Abstract

Using a finite-temperature Path Integral Monte Carlo simulation (PIMC) method and finite-size scaling, we have investigated the interaction-induced shift of the phase transition temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation of homogeneous weakly interacting Bose gases in three dimensions, which is given by a proposed analytical expression $T_{c} = T_{c}^{0}\{1 + c_{1}an^{1/3}+[c'_{2}\ln(an^{1/3})+c''_{2}]a^{2}n^{2/3} +O(a^{3}n)\}$, where $T_{c}^{0}$ is the critical temperature for an ideal gas, $a$ is the s-wave scattering length, and $n$ is the number density. We have used smaller number densities and more time slices than in the previous PIMC simulations [Gruter {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 79}, 3549 (1997)] in order to understand the difference in the value of the coefficient $c_{1}$ between their results and the (apparently) other reliable results in the literature. Our results show that $\{(T_{c}-T_{c}^{0})/T_{c}^{0}\}/(an^{1/3})$ depends strongly on the interaction strength $an^{1/3}$ while the previous PIMC results are considerably flatter and smaller than our results. We obtain $c_{1}$ = 1.32 $\pm$ 0.14, in agreement with results from recent Monte Carlo methods of three-dimensional O(2) scalar $\phi^{4}$ field theory and variational perturbation theory.