On the Observable Signature of a Defect-Mediated Finite-Temperature Transition in a Bosonic Planar Lattice

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  • 16 April 2004
Abstract
We investigate the possibility that Bose-Einstein condensates loaded on a 2D optical lattice undergo - at finite temperature - a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition. We show that in an experimentally attainable range of parameters the system is described by the XY model at finite temperature. We demonstrate that the interference pattern of the expanding condensates provides the experimental signature of the BKT transition by showing that, near the critical temperature, the k=0 component of the momentum distribution and the central peak of the atomic density profile sharply decrease. The transition in a 3D optical lattice is also discussed.

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