Canonical Ensemble of Noninteracting Bosonic Atoms and Interference of Bose-Einstein Condensates(Perspectives of Nonequilibrium Statistical Physics-The Memory of Professor Shuichi Tasaki-)

Abstract

We have discussed the interference of two independently prepared Bose-Einstein condensates. When the number of atoms in each gas is fixed and the phases of the gases are uncertain, no interference is expected in the single-particle distribution. However, the interference is observed in each single snapshot. We have presented tools for studying such snapshot interference, the measurement-induced interference. The idea is to discard the randomness in the snapshot profiles (the spatial offsets of the interference patterns) and to focus on the typical feature in the interference patterns (the fringe spacing). If the sinusoidal patterns with a definite fringe spacing is actually typical, the fringe spectrum with the random offset discarded does not fluctuate, and we are allowed to speak of the snapshot interference through its average. We have described the two gases as canonical ensembles with the numbers of atoms fixed at N individually. We have shown that the covariance of the fringe spectrum over all possible snapshot profiles is vanishingly small below the critical temperature of the Bose-Einstein condensation: the interference pattern whose fringe contrast is characterized by the average fringe spectrum is certainly observed in every snapshot in the presence of condensates. The fringe contrast becomes stronger as the temperature is lowered and the condensation fraction is increased. This clarifies the importance of the Bose-Einstein condensation to the interference of independent Bose-Einstein condensates. The knowledge I acquired from Prof. Tasaki's lecture on how to characterize the canonical ensemble of bosonic atoms has enabled us to carry out this analysis. Like this example, the coherence phenomena of quantum many-body systems in general would be explained on the basis of the idea of the measurement-indued coherence, without resort to the idea of the spontaneous symmetry breaking. This is actually true also for fermionic systems: the relative phase between two independent superconductors is built up by measurement, even though their U(1) symmetries are not broken and their phases are uncertain beforehand. It would be interesting to explore the possibility of explaining various phenomena, in which the symmetry breaking plays an essential role, on the basis of the measurement-induced coherence.