Overlap of exact and Gross-Pitaevskii wavefunctions in Bose-Einstein condensates of dilute gases

Abstract

It has been proven theoretically for bosons with two-body repulsive interaction potentials in the dilute limit that the Gross-Pitaevskii equation provides the exact energy and density per particle as does the basic many-particle Schroedinger equation [Lieb and Seiringer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 170409 (2002)]. Here, we investigate the overlap of the Gross-Pitaevskii and exact ground state wavefunctions. It is found that this overlap is always smaller than unity and may even vanish in spite of the fact that both wavefunctions provide the same energy and density per particle. Consequences are discussed.