Superfluidity of an Ideal Bose-Einstein Gas

Abstract

An equilibrium superfluid is defined as a substance whose moment of inertia in thermal equilibrium is less than the classical value. The ideal Bose-Einstein gas below its transition temperature is shown to be an equilibrium superfluid. However, a more detailed analysis of the relation between angular momentum and angular velocity shows that experiments carried out with practical angular momenta and velocities would give an abnormally large apparent moment of inertia in thermal equilibrium, i.e., the gas would appear to be an infrafluid. Nevertheless, a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein gas can be used as a model of a superfluid, if the superfluid state is assumed to be metastable rather than the thermodynamic equilibrium state.