Theory of a dilute low-temperature trapped Bose condensate

Abstract

This set of four lectures reviews various aspects of the theory of a dilute low-temperature trapped Bose gas, starting with (I) a review of the Bogoliubov description of the elementary excitations in a uniform system. The treatment is then generalized (II) to include the new physical effects of a confining harmonic trap potential on the condensate and its normal modes. An equivalent hydrodynamic description (III) focuses directly on the density and velocity fluctuations. The physics of vortices (IV) in an incompressible fluid is summarized and extended to the case of a trapped Bose condensate.