Abstract
The ground state of bosonic atoms in a trap has been shown experimentally to display Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). We prove this fact theoretically for bosons with two-body repulsive interaction potentials in the dilute limit, starting from the basic Schrödinger equation; the condensation is into the state that minimizes the Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional. This is the first rigorous proof of BEC in a physically realistic, continuum model.
- Received 18 December 2001
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.170409
©2002 American Physical Society