Abstract

Using magnetically trapped atomic hydrogen as an example, we investigate the prospects of achieving Bose–Einstein condensation in a dilute Bose gas. We show that, if the gas is quenched sufficiently far into the critical region of the phase transition, the typical time scale for the nucleation of the condensate density is short and of O(ħ/kBTc). As a result we find that thermalizing elastic collisions act as a bottleneck for the formation of the condensate. In the case of doubly polarized atomic hydrogen these occur much more frequently than the inelastic collisions leading to decay and we are led to the conclusion that Bose–Einstein condensation can indeed be achieved within the lifetime of the gas.

Introduction

In the last few years it has been clearly demonstrated that not only charged ions but also neutral atoms can be conveniently trapped and cooled by means of electro-magnetic fields. Although the physics of the various ingenious scenarios developed to accomplish this is already interesting in itself [1], the opportunities offered by an atomic gas sample at very low temperatures are exciting in their own right. Examples in this respect are the performance of high-precision spectroscopy, the search for a violation of CP invariance by measuring the electric dipole moment of atomic cesium [2], the construction of an improved time standard based on an atomic fountain [3] and the achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation in a weakly interacting gas.