Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The non-interacting Bose gas
- 3 Atomic properties
- 4 Trapping and cooling of atoms
- 5 Interactions between atoms
- 6 Theory of the condensed state
- 7 Dynamics of the condensate
- 8 Microscopic theory of the Bose gas
- 9 Rotating condensates
- 10 Superfluidity
- 11 Trapped clouds at non-zero temperature
- 12 Mixtures and spinor condensates
- 13 Interference and correlations
- 14 Optical lattices
- 15 Lower dimensions
- 16 Fermions
- 17 From atoms to molecules
- Appendix: Fundamental constants and conversion factors
- Index
10 - Superfluidity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The non-interacting Bose gas
- 3 Atomic properties
- 4 Trapping and cooling of atoms
- 5 Interactions between atoms
- 6 Theory of the condensed state
- 7 Dynamics of the condensate
- 8 Microscopic theory of the Bose gas
- 9 Rotating condensates
- 10 Superfluidity
- 11 Trapped clouds at non-zero temperature
- 12 Mixtures and spinor condensates
- 13 Interference and correlations
- 14 Optical lattices
- 15 Lower dimensions
- 16 Fermions
- 17 From atoms to molecules
- Appendix: Fundamental constants and conversion factors
- Index
Summary
In the previous chapter we described quantized vortex lines, which are one of the characteristic features of superfluids. In a classical fluid, the circulation of vortex lines is not quantized and, in addition, vortex lines decay because of viscous processes. Another feature of a superfluid, the lack of response to rotation for a small enough angular velocity, was also demonstrated. This is analogous to the Meissner effect for superconductors. One characteristic common to superfluids and superconductors is the ability to carry currents without dissipation. Such current-carrying states are not the lowest-energy state of the system. They are metastable states, the existence of which is intimately connected to the nature of the low-lying elementary excitations. The word ‘superfluidity’ does not refer to a single property of the system, but it is used to describe a variety of different phenomena (see Ref. [1]).
Historically, the connection between superfluidity and the existence of a condensate, a macroscopically occupied quantum state, dates back to Fritz London's suggestion in 1938, as we have described in Chapter 1. However, the connection between Bose–Einstein condensation and superfluidity is a subtle one. A Bose–Einstein condensed system does not necessarily exhibit superfluidity, an example being the ideal Bose gas for which the critical velocity vanishes, as demonstrated in Sec. 10.1 below. Also lower-dimensional systems may exhibit superfluid behaviour in the absence of a true condensate, as we shall see in Chapter 15.
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- Bose–Einstein Condensation in Dilute Gases , pp. 290 - 315Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008