1202.2763 (Andrej Junginger et al.)

Transition state theory for wave packet dynamics. II. Thermal decay of
Bose-Einstein condensates with long-range interaction    [PDF]

Andrej Junginger, Markus Dorwarth, Jörg Main, Günter Wunner

We apply transition state theory to coupled Gaussian wave packets and
calculate thermal decay rates of Bose-Einstein condensates with additional
long-range interaction. The ground state of such a condensate is metastable if
the contact interaction is attractive and a sufficient thermal excitation may
lead to its collapse. The use of transition state theory is made possible by
describing the condensate within a variational framework and locally mapping
the variational parameters to classical phase space as has been demonstrated in
the preceding paper [A. Junginger, J. Main, and G. Wunner, submitted to J.
Phys. A]. We apply this procedure to Gaussian wave packets and present results
for condensates with monopolar 1/r-interaction comparing decay rates obtained
by using different numbers of coupled Gaussian trial wave functions as well as
different normal form orders.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.2763