Thermodynamics of solitonic matter waves in a toroidal trap

Abstract

We investigate the thermodynamic properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate with negative scattering length confined in a toroidal trapping potential. By numerically solving the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii and Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, we study the phase transition from the uniform state to the symmetry-breaking state characterized by a bright-soliton condensate and a localized thermal cloud. In the localized regime, three states with a finite condensate fraction are present: the thermodynamically stable localized state, a metastable localized state, and also a metastable uniform state. Remarkably, the presence of the stable localized state strongly increases the critical temperature of Bose-Einstein condensation. © 2006 The American Physical Society.