Thermal suppression of phase separation in condensate mixtures

Abstract

We examine the role of thermal fluctuations in binary condensate mixtures of dilute atomic gases. In particular, we use the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory with the Popov approximation to probe the impact of noncondensate atoms to the phenomenon of phase separation in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates. We demonstrate that, in comparison to $T=0$, there is a suppression in the phase separation of the binary condensates at $T\ensuremath{\ne}0$. This arises from the interaction of the condensate atoms with the thermal cloud. We also show that, when $T\ensuremath{\ne}0$, it is possible to distinguish the phase-separated case from the miscible from the trends in the correlation function. However, this is not the case at $T=0$.