Excited states of a static dilute spherical Bose condensate in a trap

Abstract

The Bogoliubov approximation is used to study the excited states of a dilute gas of $N$ atomic bosons trapped in an isotropic harmonic potential characterized by a frequency $\omega_0$ and an oscillator length $d_0 = \sqrt{\hbar/m\omega_0}$. The self-consistent static Bose condensate has macroscopic occupation number $N_0 \gg 1$, with nonuniform spherical condensate density $n_0(r)$; by assumption, the depletion of the condensate is small ($N' \equiv N - N_0\ll N_0$). The linearized density fluctuation operator $\hat \rho'$ and velocity potential operator $\hat\Phi'$ satisfy coupled equations that embody particle conservation and Bernoulli's theorem. For each angular momentum $l$, introduction of quasiparticle operators yields coupled eigenvalue equations for the excited states; they can be expressed either in terms of Bogoliubov coherence amplitudes $u_l(r)$ and $v_l(r)$ that determine the appropriate linear combinations of particle operators, or in terms of hydrodynamic amplitudes $\rho_l'(r)$ and $\Phi_l'(r)$. The hydrodynamic picture suggests a simple variational approximation for $l >0$ that provides an upper bound for the lowest eigenvalue $\omega_l$ and an estimate for the corresponding zero-temperature occupation number $N_l'$; both expressions closely resemble those for a uniform bulk Bose condensate.