Dynamics of the Bose-Einstein condensation: analogy with the collapse dynamics of a classical self-gravitating Brownian gas

Abstract

We consider the dynamics of a gas of free bosons within a semi-classical Fokker-Planck equation for which we give a physical justification. In this context, we find a striking similarity between the Bose-Einstein condensation in the canonical ensemble, and the gravitational collapse of a gas of classical self-gravitating Brownian particles. The paper is mainly devoted to the complete study of the Bose-Einstein ``collapse'' within this model. We find that at the Bose-Einstein condensation temperature $T_c$, the chemical potential $\mu(t)$ vanishes exponentially with a universal rate that we compute exactly. Below $T_c$, we show analytically that $\sqrt{\mu(t)}$ vanishes linearly in a finite time $t_{coll}$. After $t_{coll}$, the mass of the condensate grows linearly with time and saturates exponentially to its equilibrium value for large time. We also give analytical results for the density scaling functions, for the corrections to scaling, and for the exponential relaxation time. Finally, we find that the equilibration time (above $T_c$) and the collapse time $t_{coll}$ (below $T_c$), both behave like $-T_c^{-3}\ln|T-T_c|$, near $T_c$.