Bose-Einstein condensation of atomic gases in a general harmonic oscillator

Abstract

We present an analysis of Bose-Einstein condensation for a system of non-interacting spin-0 particles in a harmonic oscillator confining potential trap. We discuss why a confined system of particles differs both qualitatively and quantitatively from an identical system which is not confined. One crucial difference is that a confined system is not characterized by a critical temperature in the same way as an unconfined system such as the free boson gas. We present the results of both a numerical and analytic analysis of the problem of Bose-Einstein condensation in a general anisotropic harmonic oscillator confining potential.