BOSE-EINSTEIN

CONDENSATION AND LIQUID

HELIUM
STATISTICAL
THERMODYNAMICS
RAJARSHI GUHA(07302009)
ANKIT SHARMA(07302011)
M.TECH. 1st YEAR
 APPLICATIONS OF BOSE-
EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
• Bose-Einstein condensation is mostly used in chemical physics and
quantum statistics.

• This provides the theory of how condensation of Bosons occurs at

very low temperatures

• Anomalous behavior of liquid helium and super-fluidity can be

described by this phenomena

• An important application of liquid helium has been in the study of

superconductivity and for the applications of superconducting
magnets

• This phenomena is a leading research field in modern physics and

chemistry
 WHAT IS BOSE-EINSTEIN
CONDENSATION

• In 1924, a paper by Satyendra

Nath Bose and Albert Einstein
Bose-Einstein condensation
described Bose-Einstein statistics
and introduced a particle concept
called “Bosons”.

• At very low temperatures the

collection of bosons into a single
state, i.e. into their ground states
is called Bose-Einstein
condensation
Nobel condensate - how alkali metal
atoms come together as the
temperature is decreased. The
image shows Bose-Einstein
condensation at, from left to right,
400, 200, and 50 nK.
 BOSE-EINSTEIN STATISTICS
AND BOSONS

• The Bose-Einstein distribution

describes the statistical behavior
of particles carrying an integer
value of intrinsic angular
momentum (spins), called Bosons.

• At low temperatures, bosons can

behave very differently than
Fermions because an unlimited
number of them can collect into
the same energy state, this
phenomenon called
"condensation“.
 LIQUID HELIUM AND ITS
ANOMALOUS BEHAVIOR
• When a liquid becomes superfluid its atoms
suddenly lose all their randomness and move in a
coordinated manner in each movement. This
causes the liquid to lack all inner friction
• How IPP(Infinite Particle Physics) Explains
Superfluidity of Helium 4 :
Perhaps, when helium atoms lose most of
their thermal motions, they acquire the ability to
form linear polymer sheets of tremendous tenacity
whose affinity for adjacent polymer sheets is
essentially nil. One might say that the property
crucial to superfluidity is the complete lack of
bonding between these polymer sheets and any
materials they come in contact with.
• When helium is cooled to a
critical temperature of 2.17 K
(called its lambda point), a
remarkable discontinuity in
heat capacity occurs
• The liquid density drops, and a
fraction of the liquid becomes
a zero viscosity "super-fluid".
• Super-fluidity arises from the
fraction of helium atoms which
has condensed to the lowest
possible energy.
The He-4 heat capacity curve
looks like greek word lambda
and thus it is lambda transition
 THE CRITICAL TEMPERATURE
• This transition occurs below a critical
temperature, which for a uniform three-
dimensional gas consisting of non-
interacting particles with no apparent
internal degrees of freedom is given
by:
Tc = 0.0837h^2/(mKB) (N/V)^2/3
Where h is plank constant, m is mass
per boson, KB is Boltzmann constant
and N is the total number of particles.
Let n0 denotes mean occupation no.
in 0th energy state, then
n0/N = 1-(T/Tc)^ 3/2 for T< Tc
describes the condensation.
Specific Heat V/s Temperature
Curve of Helium
 ELUCIDATION OF LIQUID He-4
BEHAVIOR BY BEC
• BEC is a first order process, but the system has a uniform density rather
than two different densities during transition because condensation occurs
in momentum space rather than co-ordinate space and condensed phase
has zero momentum

• The heat capacity curves for liquid He-4 and ideal BE gas is very similar

• BEC describes the transition except the fact that lambda transition is not 1st
order as heat capacity diverges near Tc

• One can’t accept complete agreement because liquid He-4 is an inextricable

combination of quantum statistics and intermolecular interactions.

• BEC can’t predict liquid He-3 behavior as it obeys Fermi-Dirac statistics

 WORKS THAT FOLLOW BEC

• After appearance of BEC it is applied by various scientists to describe

different phenomena, some of these are_

• 1. explanation of thermal radiation by Plank,

• 2.proposal of London that liquid helium can be considered as a degenerate
BE gas, with this formula
n/n0 = 1- (T/T0)^s T<T0, T0 is degeneracy temperature, s=1.5 for BE gas,
 3. superfluidity explanation by Landau,

• 4. Onsager-Penrose derivation that roughly 8% of atoms are “condensed” in

liquid helium,

• 5. BCS theory of superconductivity,

• 6. reaching near 0K by laser cooling and magnetic traps etc.

Liquid Helium Superfluidity
 RECENT RESEARCH WORKS
AND PROBLEMS
• The conditions for achieving a Bose-Einstein condensate are quite extreme.
• The participating particles must be considered to be identical, and this is a
condition that is difficult to achieve for whole atoms.

• The condition of indistinguishability requires that the deBroglie wavelengths

of the particles overlap significantly.
• This requires extremely low temperatures so that the deBroglie wavelengths
will be long, but also requires a fairly high particle density to narrow the gap
between the particles.

• The use of laser cooling and the trapping of ultra-cold atoms with magnetic
traps has produced temperatures in the nanokelvin range.

• Cornell and Wieman along with Ketterle of MIT received the 2001 Nobel
Prize in Physics "for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in
dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the
properties of the condensates".
 CONCLUSIONS

 BEC and liquid helium are very interrelated

and there are many physical phenomenon
associated with it.
 This field is one of the frontiers in modern
physics and still producing Noble laureates.
 From mere theory and derivation, BE statistics
then applied to liquid helium and even after its
90 years of existence new applications keep
coming.