The Bose-Einstein condensation in a finite one-dimensional homogeneous system of noninteracting bosons

Abstract

Condensation of the ideal Bose gas in a closed volume having the shape of a rectangular parallel-epiped of length L with a square base of side length l (L ≫ l) is theoretically studied within the framework of the Bose-Einstein statistics (grand canonical ensemble) and within the statistics of a canonical ensemble of bosons. Under the condition N(l/L)4 ≪ l, where N is the total number of gas particles, dependence of the average number of particles in the condensate on the temperature T in both statistics is expressed as a function of the ratio t=T/T1, where T1 is a certain characteristic temperature depending only on the longitudinal size L. Therefore, the condensation process exhibits a one-dimensional (1D) character. In the 1D regime, the average numbers of particles in condensates of the grand canonical and canonical ensembles coincide only in the limiting cases of t → 0 and t → ∞. The distribution function of the number of particles in the condensate of a canonical ensemble of bosons at t ≤1 has a resonance shape and qualitatively differs from the Bose-Einstein distribution. The former distribution begins to change in the region of t ∼ 1 and acquires the shape of the Bose-Einstein distribution for t ≫ 1. This transformation proceeds gradually that is, the 1D condensation process exhibits no features characteristic of the phase transition in a 3D system. For N(l/L)4 ≫ 1, the process acquires a 3D character with respect to the average number of particles in the condensate, but the 1D character of the distribution function of the number of particles in the condensate of a canonical ensemble of bosons is retained at all N values.