Mesoscopic phenomena in Bose-Einstein systems: Persistent currents, population oscillations, and quantal phases

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Mesoscopic phenomena—including population oscillations and persistent currents driven by quantal phases—are explored theoretically in the context of multiply connected Bose-Einstein systems composed of trapped alkali-metal gas atoms. These atomic phenomena are bosonic analogs of electronic persistent currents in normal metals and Little-Parks oscillations in superconductors. Differences between oscillatory phenomena due to quantal phases in Bose-Einstein systems and in conventional superconductors are discussed, particularly with regard to their potential for discriminating between the standard BCS scenario and the Bose-Einstein condensation of preformed pairs scenario for the superconducting transition in high-temperature superconductors.