Unification of BKT and BEC Phase Transitions in a Trapped Two-Dimensional Bose Gas

ORAL

Abstract

We study the critical point for the emergence of coherence in a harmonically trapped two-dimensional (2d) Bose gas with tuneable interactions. Over a wide range of interaction strengths we find excellent agreement with predictions based on the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) theory of 2d superfluidity. This allows us to quantitatively show, without any free parameters, that the interaction-driven BKT transition smoothly converges onto the purely statistical Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) transition in the limit of vanishing interactions.

Authors

  • Richard Fletcher

    University of Cambridge

  • Martin Robert-de-Saint-Vincent

    University of Cambridge

  • Jay Man

    University of Cambridge

  • Nir Navon

    University of Cambridge

  • Robert Smith

    University of Cambridge

  • Konrad Viebahn

    University of Cambridge

  • Zoran Hadzibabic

    University of Cambridge