Bose–Einstein condensation in random potentials

We present a rigorous study of the perfect Bose-gas in the presence of a homogeneous ergodic random potential. It is demonstrated that the Lifshitz tail behaviour of the one-particle spectrum reduces the critical dimensionality of the (generalized) Bose–Einstein Condensation (BEC) to d=1. To tackle the Off-Diagonal Long-Range Order (ODLRO) we introduce the space average one-body reduced density matrix. For a one-dimensional Poisson-type random potential we prove that randomness enhances the exponential decay of this matrix in domain free of the BEC. To cite this article: O. Lenoble et al., C. R. Physique 5 (2004).     

The observability of the decay of off-diagonal-long-range-order in superconducting films

A special device of a Josephson interferometer is proposed here for measuring of the decay of off-diagonal-long-range order (ODLRO) in a superconducting film. We will show that ODLRO does exist closer toT _c than the static correlation function between two order parameters predicts; but the decay of ODLRO has no influence on the electrical conductivity in the long-wave-length-limit.     

Supersolidity for hard-core-bosons coupled to optical phonons

The coexistence of diagonal long-range order (DLRO) and off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO), manifested in some systems, is still a theoretical enigma. Here, we present a novel microscopic mechanism for supersolidity or the homogeneous coexistence of charge-density-wave state (an example of DLRO) and superfluidity/superconductivity (a realization of ODLRO). We derive an effective d-dimensional Hamiltonian for a system of hard-core-bosons coupled to optical phonons in a lattice. At non-half-fillings, a superfluid/superconductor to a supersolid transition occurs at intermediate boson–phonon couplings, while at strong-couplings the system phase separates. We demonstrate explicitly that the presence of next-nearest-neighbor hopping and nearest-neighbor repulsion leads to supersolidity.     

On the broken time translation symmetry in macroscopic systems: Precessing states and off-diagonal long-range order

The broken symmetry state with off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO), which is characterized by the vacuum expectation value of the operator of creation of the conserved quantum number Q, has the time-dependent order parameter. However, the breaking of the time translation symmetry is observable only if the charge Q is not strictly conserved and may decay. This dichotomy is resolved in systems with quasi-ODLRO. These systems have two well separated relaxation times: the relaxation time τ _Q of the charge Q and the energy relaxation time τ _E . If τ _Q ? τ _E , the perturbed system relaxes first to the state with the ODLRO, which persists for a long time and finally relaxes to the full equilibrium static state. In the limit τQ → ∞, but not in the strict limit case when the charge Q is conserved, the intermediate ODLRO state can be considered as the ground state of the system at fixed Q with the observable spontaneously broken time translation symmetry. Examples of systems with quasi-ODLRO are provided by superfluid phase of liquid ⁴He, Bose-Einstein condensation of magnons (phase coherent spin precession) and precessing vortices.     

High-Tc spin superfluidity in antiferromagnets

We report the observation of the unusual behavior of induction decay signals in antiferromagnetic monocrystals with Suhl-Nakamura interactions. The signals show the formation of the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of magnons and the existence of spin supercurrent, in complete analogy with the spin superfluidity in the superfluid (3)He and the atomic BEC of quantum gases. In the experiments described here, the temperature of the magnon BEC is a thousand times larger than in the superfluid (3)He. It opens a possibility to apply the spin supercurrent for various magnetic spintronics applications.     

Viscous fingering in a yield stress fluid

A new Monte Carlo method for calculating ground-state properties of liquid 4He is described. It is shown that Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) implies delocalization of the wave function. It is shown that there is no general connection between the static structure factor and BEC. It is suggested that the observed connection in liquid 4He is due to the creation of spaces in the liquid structure, which are required so that the wave function can delocalize, in the presence of the hard-core interactions. It is shown that this suggestion is quantitatively consistent with observations on liquid 4He.     

Dynamics of quantum liquids in nanoporous media

We sketch our recent neutron scattering measurements of the phonon-roton (P-R) modes and Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of liquid ⁴He in porous media. The aim is to reveal the interdependence of BEC, well-defined P-R modes and superfluidity in helium confined to nanoscales and in disorder. In all porous media investigated to date, we observe well-defined P-R modes above T_c in the normal liquid phase, up to T_λ. Since well defined P-R modes are associated with BEC, this suggests that there is BEC above T_c in porous media. We interpret this as BEC localized to favorable regions separated by regions of normal fluid. At high pressures, p ≥25 bars, well defined P-R modes are no longer observed at lower wavevectors, Q ≤1.5 ?. At p ≈39 bars a roton is no longer observed. Work is in progress to explore whether loss of modes can be associated with a recently reported Quantum Phase Transition.     

Degeneracy of the ground states at half-filling and the existence of the η-pairing off-diagonal long-range order in the negative-U Hubbard models

Since C.N. Yang proposed the concept of the η-pairing off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO), its existence in the negative-U Hubbard models has been discussed by many authors. Recently, Shen and Qiu showed explicitly that the η-pairing ODLRO exists in some ground states of the negative-U Hubbard models defined on a certain type of bipartite lattices. In this article, we shall show that these states are, in fact, the only ground states which have η-pairing ODLRO. Finally, we shall briefly discuss the experimental implication of our results.     

Neutron scattering study of the excitation spectrum of solid helium at ultra-low temperatures

There has been a resurgence of interest in the properties of solid helium due to the recent discovery of non-classical rotational inertia (NCRI) in solid ⁴He by Chan and coworkers below 200 mK which they have interpreted as a transition to a ‘supersolid’ phase. We have carried out a series of elastic and inelastic neutron scattering measurements on single crystals of hcp ⁴He at temperatures down to 60 mK. While we have found no direct evidence of any change in the excitation spectrum at low temperatures, we have found that the excitation spectrum of solid ⁴He shows several interesting features, including extra branches in addition to the phonon branches. We interpret these extra branches as single particle excitations due to propagating vacancy waves, which map on to the famous ‘roton minimum’ long known in the excitation spectrum of superfluid liquid ⁴He. The results show that in fact solid ⁴He shares several features in common with the superfluid.      

Bose-Einstein condensation of incommensurate solid 4He

It is pointed out that the simulation computation of energy performed so far cannot be used to decide if the ground state of solid 4He has the number of lattice sites equal to the number of atoms (commensurate state) or if it is different (incommensurate state). The best variational wave function, a shadow wave function, gives an incommensurate state, but the equilibrium concentration of vacancies remains to be determined. We have computed the one-body density matrix in solid 4He for the incommensurate state by means of an exact ground state projector method in which incommensurability occurs spontaneously. We find a vacancy induced Bose-Einstein condensation of about 0.23 atoms per vacancy at a pressure of 54 bar. This means that bulk solid 4He is supersolid at low enough temperature if the exact ground state is incommensurate.     

Observation of classical rotational inertia and nonclassical supersolid signals in solid 4He below 250 mK

We have confirmed the existence, as first reported by Kim and Chan, of a supersolid state in solid 4He at temperatures below 250 mK. We have employed a torsional oscillator cell with a square cross section to insure a locking of the solid to the oscillating cell. We find that the nonclassical rotational inertia signal is not a universal property of solid 4He but can be eliminated through an annealing of the solid helium sample. This result has important implications for our understanding of the supersolid state.     

Effective Minkowski-to-Euclidean signature change of the magnon BEC pseudo-Goldstone mode in polar <Superscript>3</Superscript>He

We discuss the effective metric experienced by the Nambu–Goldstone mode propagating in the broken symmetry spin-superfluid state of coherent precession of magnetization. This collective mode represents the phonon in the RF driven or pulsed out-of-equilibrium Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) of optical magnons. We derive the effective BEC free energy and consider the phonon spectrum when the spin superfluid BEC is formed in the anisotropic polar phase of superfluid ³He, experimentally observed in uniaxial aerogel ³He-samples. The coherent precession of magnetization experiences an instability at a critical value of the tilting angle of external magnetic field with respect to the anisotropy axis. From the action of quadratic deviations around equilibrium, this instability is interpreted as a Minkowski-to-Euclidean signature change of the effective phonon metric. We also note the similarity between the magnon BEC in the unstable region and an effective vacuum scalar “ghost” condensate.     

Structure and dynamics of water confined in silica hydrogels: X-ray scattering and dielectric spectroscopy studies

Liquid ⁴He immersed in porous media such as aerogel, Vycor, and Geltech silica are excellent examples of bosons in disorder and confinement. Of special interest is the impact of disorder on Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), on the elementary excitations of the superfluid and on their connection to the superfluid properties. Indeed, the modifications induced by disorder can be used to reveal the interdependence of BEC, the excitations and superfluidity. To date, the superfluid properties in porous media are much more completely documented than BEC or the excitations. In this paper, we review measurements of the excitations by neutron scattering, focusing particularly on their temperature dependence and the existence of phonon-roton excitations at higher temperatures. The weight of single excitation response at higher temperatures suggests the existence of localized BEC above the superfluid-normal transition temperature in porous media. We sketch several recent predictions made for BEC, the excitations, and the superfluid properties in disorder. Connections with other Dirty Bose systems are made.Received: 1 January 2003, Published online: 21 October 2003PACS: 03.75.Kk Dynamic properties of condensates; collective and hydrodynamic excitations, superfluid flow - 61.12.Ex Neutron scattering (including small-angle scattering) - 67.40.Yv Boson degeneracy and superfluidity of ⁴He: Impurities and other defects     

Recent progress in simulation of the ground state of many Boson systems

We present two recent advances in the simulation of ⁴He in the condensed phase at zero temperature. Within the variational theory of strongly interacting bosons we have studied a cluster of ⁴He atoms with one alkali ion K⁺. For the wave function we have used a new shadow wave function (SWF) in which the coupling between one ⁴He atom and its shadow variable depends on its distance from the ion. This substantially improves the energy. The first shell around the ion contains 14 atoms which are spatially ordered. However the atoms of the first shell are not completely localized and frequent exchanges with atoms which are further from the ion take place. This also suggests that at least for the ion K⁺ the atoms of the first shell participate in the superfluidity. We have also introduced a new extension of the path integral ground state (PIGS) method which is able to compute exact ground state expectation values without extrapolations and with a SWF as the trial variational wave function to project on the ground state. This is an important extension which opens up the possibility of studying disorder phenomena in the solid phase by an exact method at zero temperature. We have applied this technique to compute the energy of formation of a vacancy at different densities in the solid phase of ⁴He. This computation confirms the variational result that a vacancy is a delocalized defect in the low density helium solid.     

Translationally noninvariant path integral for Bose-Einstein condensate

The Bogolyubov [Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov (HFB)] method performs the one-particle (mean-field) approximation in the theory of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). Various generalizations of this method are possible. Apart from a nonlinear theory, taking the correlation effects into consideration, the HFB approximation for translationally noninvariant systems describes an instructive phenomenon. This paper is devoted to the treatment of two cases: superfluid ⁴He in porous media and atomic BEC in traps subjected to the gravitational field. Both these systems show the dependence of a critical BEC temperature T _c on their nonuniform properties in space.     

Finite-size Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition at grain boundaries in solid 4He and the role of 3He impurities

We analyze the complex phenomenology of the nonclassical rotational inertia (NCRI) observed at low temperature in solid 4He within the context of a two-dimensional Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in a premelted 4He film at the grain boundaries. We show that both the temperature and 3He doping dependence of the NCRI fraction (NCRIF) can be ascribed to finite size effects induced by the finite grain size. We give an estimate of the average size of the grains which we argue to be limited by the isotopic 3He impurities and we provide a simple power-law relation between the NCRIF and the 3He concentration.     

Wetting Properties of Grain Boundaries in Solid 4He

We have observed boundaries between hcp 4He crystal grains in equilibrium with liquid 4He. We have found that, when emerging at the liquid-solid interface, a grain boundary makes a groove whose dihedral angle 2theta is nonzero. This measurement shows that grain boundaries are not completely wet by the liquid phase, in agreement with recent Monte Carlo simulations. Depending on the value of theta, the contact line of a grain boundary with a solid wall may be wet by the liquid. In this case, the line is a thin channel with a curved triangular cross section, whose measured width agrees with predictions from a simple model. We discuss these measurements in the context of grain boundary premelting and for a future understanding of the possible supersolidity of solid 4He.     

Off-diagonal long-range order and the Meissner effect

We provide a general, model-independent, derivation of the Meissner effect, on the basis of assumptions of off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO) and gauge covariance of the second kind. This is an exact result that is independent of the microscopic mechanism responsible for the ordering, and so is applicable both to high- and low-T _c superconductors.     

Possible low-temperature nearly frictionless states of locally amorphous solid <Superscript>4</Superscript>He in nanopores

It has been recently reported that there might be amorphous solid ⁴He formed in around 4.7 ± 0.15 nm pore [J. Bossy, T. Hansen, H.R. Glyde, Phys. Rev. B 81, 184507 (2010)]. By treating the solid ⁴He in confined nanopores at very low temperature locally as an amorphous matter and using the verified transition-state model together with the specific activation energy and volume, we can observe a sudden change of the shearing stresses (which relate to the transport resistance) at corresponding onset temperature of locally amorphous solid ⁴He considering the role of holes or defects. We found that there might be possible almost very-low flow-resistance transport of locally amorphous solid ⁴He confined in nanopores at temperature ∼ 0.1 K after intensive calculations.