Discrete Spectrum in Bose Condensation

Enrico Celeghini, Mario Rasetti

Published 2000-04-06, updated 2000-04-14Version 2

A quantitative description of the whole process of condensation of bosons in an harmonic trap is given resorting only to Gibbs and Bose postulates, without assuming equipartition nor continuum statistics. Below Tc discrete spectrum theory predicts for the thermo-dynamical variables a behavior different from the continuum case. In particular a new critical temperature is found where the specific heat exhibits a lambda-like spike. Numerical values of the relevant quantities depend on the experimental set-up. The theory does not take into account collective effects in the ground state.