Conditions for Bose–Einstein condensation in periodic background

Abstract

Abstract We investigate Bose–Einstein condensation of a noninteracting gas of Bose particles moving in the background of a periodic lattice of delta functions. In the one-dimensional case, where one has no condensation in the free case, this property persists also in the presence of the lattice for all examples which are considered in the present paper and we could only formulate some conditions which are necessary for condensation. We also considered the three-dimensional case and showed that the lattice does not destroy condensation. We calculated, for small coupling, the change in the critical temperature, which is lowered by the lattice. Finally, we took another, more general view on the problem using heat kernel expansion, and discuss BEC for Casimir effect related configurations.