Maxwell's Demon at work: Two types of Bose condensate fluctuations in power-law traps

Opt Express. 1997 Nov 10;1(10):262-71. doi: 10.1364/oe.1.000262.

Abstract

After discussing the idea underlying the Maxwell's Demon ensemble, we employ this ensemble for calculating fluctuations of ideal Bose gas condensates in traps with power-law single-particle energy spectra. Two essentially different cases have to be distinguished. If the heat capacity is continuous at the condensation point, the fluctuations of the number of condensate particles vanish linearly with temperature, independent of the trap characteristics. In this case, microcanonical and canonical fluctuations are practically indistinguishable. If the heat capacity is discontinuous, the fluctuations vanish algebraically with temperature, with an exponent determined by the trap, and the micro-canonical fluctuations are lower than their canonical counterparts.