A strongly interacting Bose gas: Nozi\`eres and Schmitt-Rink theory and beyond

We calculate the critical temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation in a gas of bosonic atoms across a Feshbach resonance, and show how medium effects at negative scattering lengths give rise to pairs reminiscent of the ones responsible for fermionic superfluidity. We find that the formation of pairs leads to a large suppression of the critical temperature. Within the formalism developed by Nozieres and Schmitt-Rink the gas appears mechanically stable throughout the entire crossover region, but when interactions between pairs are taken into account we show that the gas becomes unstable close to the critical temperature. We discuss prospects of observing these effects in a gas of ultracold Cs133 atoms where recent measurements indicate that the gas may be sufficiently long-lived to explore the many-body physics around a Feshbach resonance.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, RevTeX. Significantly expanded to include effects beyond NS

Nash Equilibria in the Response Strategy of Correlated Games

In nature and society problems arise when different interests are difficult to reconcile, which are modeled in game theory. While most applications assume uncorrelated games, a more detailed modeling is necessary to consider the correlations that influence the decisions of the players. The current theory for correlated games, however, enforces the players to obey the instructions from a third party or "correlation device" to reach equilibrium, but this cannot be achieved for all initial correlations. We extend here the existing framework of correlated games and find that there are other interesting and previously unknown Nash equilibria that make use of correlations to obtain the best payoff. This is achieved by allowing the players the freedom to follow or not to follow the suggestions of the correlation device. By assigning independent probabilities to follow every possible suggestion, the players engage in a response game that turns out to have a rich structure of Nash equilibria that goes beyond the correlated equilibrium and mixed-strategy solutions. We determine the Nash equilibria for all possible correlated Snowdrift games, which we find to be describable by Ising Models in thermal equilibrium. We believe that our approach paves the way to a study of correlations in games that uncovers the existence of interesting underlying interaction mechanisms, without compromising the independence of the players

Many-body aspects of coherent atom-molecule oscillations

We study the many-body effects on coherent atom-molecule oscillations by means of an effective quantum field theory that describes Feshbach-resonant interactions in Bose gases in terms of an atom-molecule hamiltonian. We determine numerically the many-body corrections to the oscillation frequency for various densities of the atomic condensate. We also derive an analytic expression that approximately describes both the density and magnetic-field dependence of this frequency near the resonance. We find excellent agreement with experiment.Comment: 4 pages, revtex 4, v2: minor changes: corrected some typos/omissions, Discarded use of the term 'Rabi frequency' to avoid confusio

Microscopic many-body theory of atomic Bose gases near a Feshbach resonance

A Feshbach resonance in the s-wave scattering length occurs if the energy of the two atoms in the incoming open channel is close to the energy of a bound state in a coupled closed channel. Starting from the microscopic hamiltonian that describes this situation, we derive the effective atom-molecule theory for a Bose gas near a Feshbach resonance. In order to take into account all two-body processes, we have to dress the bare couplings of the atom-molecule model with ladder diagrams. This results in a quantum field theory that exactly reproduces the scattering amplitude of the atoms and the bound-state energy of the molecules. Since these properties are incorporated at the quantum level, the theory can be applied both above and below the critical temperature of the gas. Moreover, making use of the true interatomic potentials ensures that no divergences are encountered at any stage of the calculation. We also present the mean-field theory for the Bose-Einstein condensed phase of the gas.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of Optics B special issue on the 7th International Workshop on Atom Optics and Interferometr

Critical Temperature of a Trapped Bose Gas: Mean-Field Theory and Fluctuations

We investigate the possibilities of distinguishing the mean-field and fluctuation effects on the critical temperature of a trapped Bose gas with repulsive interatomic interactions. Since in a direct measurement of the critical temperature as a function of the number of trapped atoms these effects are small compared to the ideal gas results, we propose to observe Bose-Einstein condensation by adiabatically ramping down the trapping frequency. Moreover, analyzing this adiabatic cooling scheme, we show that fluctuation effects can lead to the formation of a Bose condensate at frequencies which are much larger than those predicted by the mean-field theory.Comment: 4 pages of ReVTeX and 3 figures. Submitted to Physical Review

Schwinger-Keldysh theory for Bose-Einstein condensation of photons in a dye-filled optical microcavity

We consider Bose-Einstein condensation of photons in an optical cavity filled with dye molecules that are excited by laser light. By using the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism we derive a Langevin field equation that describes the dynamics of the photon gas, and in particular its equilibrium properties and relaxation towards equilibrium. Furthermore we show that the finite lifetime effects of the photons are captured in a single dimensionless damping parameter, that depends on the power of the external laser pumping the dye. Finally, as applications of our theory we determine spectral functions and collective modes of the photon gas in both the normal and the Bose-Einstein condensed phase

Quantum rotor model for a Bose-Einstein condensate of dipolar molecules

We show that a Bose-Einstein condensate of heteronuclear molecules in the regime of small and static electric fields is described by a quantum rotor model for the macroscopic electric dipole moment of the molecular gas cloud. We solve this model exactly and find the symmetric, i.e., rotationally invariant, and dipolar phases expected from the single-molecule problem, but also an axial and planar nematic phase due to many-body effects. Investigation of the wavefunction of the macroscopic dipole moment also reveals squeezing of the probability distribution for the angular momentum of the molecules

Phase fluctuations and first-order correlation functions of dissipative Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate the finite lifetime effects on first-order correlation functions of dissipative Bose-Einstein condensates. By taking into account the phase fluctuations up to all orders, we show that the finite lifetime effects are neglible for the spatial first-order correlation functions, but have an important effect on the temporal correlations. As an application, we calculate the one-particle density matrix of a quasi-condensate of photons. Finally, we also consider the photons in the normal state and we demonstrate that the finite lifetime effects decrease both the spatial and temporal first-order correlation functions.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Noisy Dynamics of a Vortex in a Partially Bose-Einstein Condensed Gas

We study the dynamics of a straight vortex line in a partially Bose-Einstein condensed atomic gas. Using a variational approach to the stochastic field equation that describes the dynamics of the condensate at nonzero temperature, we derive the stochastic equations of motion for the position of the vortex core. Using these results, we calculate the time it takes the vortex to spiral out of the condensate. Due to the fact that we include thermal fluctuations in our description, this lifetime of the vortex is finite even if its initial position is in the center of the condensate.Comment: 9 pages, no figure