Fluctuations of the Bose-Einstein condensate

Sourav Chatterjee, Persi Diaconis

Published 2013-06-16, updated 2014-01-14Version 4

This article gives a rigorous analysis of the fluctuations of the Bose-Einstein condensate for a system of non-interacting bosons in an arbitrary potential, assuming that the system is governed by the canonical ensemble. As a result of the analysis, we are able to tell the order of fluctuations of the condensate fraction as well as its limiting distribution upon proper centering and scaling. This yields interesting results. For example, for a system of $n$ bosons in a 3D harmonic trap near the transition temperature, the order of fluctuations of the condensate fraction is $n^{-1/2}$ and the limiting distribution is normal, whereas for the 3D uniform Bose gas, the order of fluctuations is $n^{-1/3}$ and the limiting distribution is an explicit non-normal distribution. For a 2D harmonic trap, the order of fluctuations is $n^{-1/2}(\log n)^{1/2}$, which is larger than $n^{-1/2}$ but the limiting distribution is still normal. All of these results come as easy consequences of a general theorem.