Consequences of the Pauli exclusion principle for the Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms and excitons

S. M. A. Rombouts, L. Pollet, K. Van Houcke

Published 2005-01-27, updated 2005-05-19Version 2

The bosonic atoms used in present day experiments on Bose-Einstein condensation are made up of fermionic electrons and nucleons. In this Letter we demonstrate how the Pauli exclusion principle for these constituents puts an upper limit on the Bose-Einstein-condensed fraction. Detailed numerical results are presented for hydrogen atoms in a cubic volume and for excitons in semiconductors and semiconductor bilayer systems. The resulting condensate depletion scales differently from what one expects for bosons with a repulsive hard-core interaction. At high densities, Pauli exclusion results in significantly more condensate depletion. These results also shed a new light on the low condensed fraction in liquid helium II.