Oberwolfach Seminar: The Mathematics of the Bose Gas and its Condensation

Date:

May 30th - June 5th, 2004

Organizers:

Elliott H. Lieb, Princeton University / TU Berlin

Robert Seiringer, Princeton University

Jakob Yngvason, Universität Wien

Subjects:

The phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), where a macroscopic number of atomic particles coherently occupies a single quantum state, was predicted by Einstein in 1925. An experimental realization had to wait for 70 years, but was finally accomplished in 1995. This feat, that earned the principal researchers the 1999 Nobel prize for physics, has created great interest in the quantum phenomena exhibited by dilute Bose gases at low temperatures and this subject is now studied both experimentally and theoretically worldwide. Einstein's original work dealt only with ideal particles where interactions are ignored, but most of the present research is concerned with the effects of the unavoidable interaction among the particles. The properties of interacting Bose gases are also of great interest from the point of view of mathematical physics, where the ambition is to start from a realistic many body Hamiltonian and derive the properties of the low energy states by rigorous mathematical analysis. This Oberwolfach Seminar introduces the mathematics of dilute Bose gases. Topics will include: The concept of BEC, the ground state energy of a dilute Bose gas, inhomogenous gases and the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, BEC and superfluidity in trapped gases, the Bogoliubov approximation, exactly soluble models.

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of quantum mechanics and the analysis of Hilbert space operators.

Deadline for applications:

April 16, 2004

The seminars take place at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach. The number of participants is restricted to 24. Applications including

• full name and address, including e-mail address
• present position, university
• name of supervisor of Ph.D. thesis
• a short summary of previous work and interest

should be sent as hard copy or by e-mail (.ps or .pdf file) to:

Prof. Dr. Gert-Martin Greuel
Universität Kaiserslautern
Fachbereich Mathematik
Erwin Schrödingerstr.
67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
.