This paper reviews recent experimental and theoretical progress concerning many-body phenomena in dilute, ultracold gases. It focuses on effects beyond standard weak-coupling descriptions, such as the Mott-Hubbard transition in optical lattices, strongly interacting gases in one and two dimensions, or lowest-Landau-level physics in quasi-two-dimensional gases in fast rotation. Strong correlations in fermionic gases are discussed in optical lattices or near-Feshbach resonances in the BCS-BEC crossover.

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Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Gases

A Bose-Einstein condensate was produced in a vapor of rubidium-87 atoms that was confined by magnetic fields and evaporatively cooled. The condensate fraction first appeared near a temperature of 170 nanokelvin and a number density of 2.5 x 10 12 per cubic centimeter and could be preserved for more than 15 seconds. Three primary signatures of Bose-Einstein condensation were seen. (i) On top of a broad thermal velocity distribution, a narrow peak appeared that was centered at zero velocity. (ii) The fraction of the atoms that were in this low-velocity peak increased abruptly as the sample temperature was lowered. (iii) The peak exhibited a nonthermal, anisotropic velocity distribution expected of the minimum-energy quantum state of the magnetic trap in contrast to the isotropic, thermal velocity distribution observed in the broad uncondensed fraction.

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Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation in a Dilute Atomic Vapor

The phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation of dilute gases in traps is reviewed from a theoretical perspective. Mean-field theory provides a framework to understand the main features of the condensation and the role of interactions between particles. Various properties of these systems are discussed, including the density profiles and the energy of the ground-state configurations, the collective oscillations and the dynamics of the expansion, the condensate fraction and the thermodynamic functions. The thermodynamic limit exhibits a scaling behavior in the relevant length and energy scales. Despite the dilute nature of the gases, interactions profoundly modify the static as well as the dynamic properties of the system; the predictions of mean-field theory are in excellent agreement with available experimental results. Effects of superfluidity including the existence of quantized vortices and the reduction of the moment of inertia are discussed, as well as the consequences of coherence such as the Josephson effect and interference phenomena. The review also assesses the accuracy and limitations of the mean-field approach.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/9806038.pdf

Theory of Bose-Einstein condensation in trapped gases

Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) has been observed in a dilute gas of sodium atoms. A Bose-Einstein condensate consists of a macroscopic population of the ground state of the system, and is a coherent state of matter. In an ideal gas, this phase transition is purely quantum-statistical. The study of BEC in weakly interacting systems which can be controlled and observed with precision holds the promise of revealing new macroscopic quantum phenomena that can be understood from first principles.

Bose-Einstein condensation in a gas of sodium atoms

Recent interest in aspects common to quantum information and condensed matter has prompted a flurry of activity at the border of these disciplines that were far distant until a few years ago. Numerous interesting questions have been addressed so far. Here an important part of this field, the properties of the entanglement in many-body systems, are reviewed. The zero and finite temperature properties of entanglement in interacting spin, fermion, and boson model systems are discussed. Both bipartite and multipartite entanglement will be considered. In equilibrium entanglement is shown tightly connected to the characteristics of the phase diagram. The behavior of entanglement can be related, via certain witnesses, to thermodynamic quantities thus offering interesting possibilities for an experimental test. Out of equilibrium entangled states are generated and manipulated by means of many-body Hamiltonians.

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Entanglement in many-body systems

We show that the uncertainty in the relative quantum phase of two fields propagating in the arms of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer can be reduced to the Heisenberg limit by driving the interferometer with two Fock states containing equal numbers of photons. This leads to a minimum detectable phase shift far below that of any interferometer driven by a coherent light source.

Interferometric detection of optical phase shifts at the Heisenberg limit.

We present numerical results from solving the time-dependent nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation (NLSE) that describes an inhomogeneous, weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate in a small harmonic trap potential at zero temperature. With this method we are able to find solutions for the NLSE for ground state condensate wave functions in one dimension or in three dimensions with spherical symmetry. These solutions corroborate previous ground state results obtained from the solution of the time-independent NLSE. Furthrmore, we can examine the time evolution of the macroscopic wave function even when the trap potential is changed on a time scale comparable to that of the condensate dynamics, a situation that can be easily achieved in magneto-optical traps. We show that there are stable solutions for atomic species with both positive and negative s-wave scattering lengths in one-dimensional (1D) and 3D systems for a fixed number of atoms. In both the 1D and 3D cases, these negative scattering length solutions have solitonlike properties. In 3D, however, these solutions are only stable for a modest range of nonlinearities. We analyze the prospects for diagnosing Bose-Einstein condensation in a trap using several experiments that exploit the time-dependent behavior of the condensate.

Time-dependent solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation for Bose-condensed trapped neutral atoms

We present a method for calculating the spectrum emitted by an atom in an intense laser field. This method is based on the direct use of the acceleration of the atomic electron rather than the dipole moment of the atom. We show, using a numerical calculation in one dimension, that this method produces a more exact numerical evaluation of the spectrum. This technique is particularly important in determining the background to the high harmonics emitted by the atom.

Calculation of the background emitted during high-harmonic generation

We apply linear-response analysis of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation to obtain the excitation frequencies of a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a time-averaged orbiting potential trap. Our calculated values are in excellent agreement with those observed in a recent experiment.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/9605170.pdf

Collective Excitations of Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensates.

We present a numerical technique to solve the time-independent nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation with an external potential. We apply it to the case of a dilute Bose-condensed assembly of trapped neutral atoms where the potential varies on the same scale as the condensate. This situation should soon be accessible to experimental observation.

K. Burnett

Papers

Interferometric detection of optical phase shifts at the Heisenberg limit.

Time-dependent solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation for Bose-condensed trapped neutral atoms

Calculation of the background emitted during high-harmonic generation

Collective Excitations of Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensates.

Numerical solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation for small samples of trapped neutral atoms