In a $k$-dimensional system of weakly interacting Bose atoms trapped by a spherically symmetric and harmonic external potential, an exact expression is obtained for the rotating ground states at a fixed angular momentum. The result is valid for arbitrary interactions obeying minimal physical requirements. Depending on the sign of a modified scattering length, it reduces to either a collective rotation or a condensed vortex state, with no alternative. The ground state can undergo a kind of quantum phase transition when the shape of the interaction potential is smoothly varied.

We investigate the effect of the environment on a Berry phase measurement involving a spin-half. We model the spin $+$ environment using a biased spin-boson Hamiltonian with a time-dependent magnetic field. We find that, contrary to naive expectations, the Berry phase acquired by the spin can be observed, but only on time scales which are neither too short nor very long. However this Berry phase is not the same as for the isolated spin-half. It does not have a simple geometric interpretation in terms of the adiabatic evolution of either bare spin states or the dressed spin resonances. This result is crucial for proposed Berry phase measurements in superconducting nanocircuits.

Phase transition in the two-dimensional $q$-state Potts model with random ferromagnetic couplings is studied in the large-$q$ limit by a combinatorial optimization algorithm and by approximate mappings. We conjecture that the critical behavior of the model is controlled by the isotropic version of the infinite randomness fixed point of the random transverse-field Ising spin chain and the critical exponents are exactly given by $\beta =(3-\sqrt{5})/4$, ${\beta }_s=1/2$, and $\nu =1$. The specific heat has a logarithmic singularity, but at the transition point there are very strong sample-to-sample fluctuations. Discretized randomness results in discontinuities in the internal energy.

A proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem for a single two-level system is presented. It employs five eight-element positive operator-valued measures and a simple algebraic reasoning based on the geometry of the dodecahedron.

We present a general derivation of the non-Fickian behavior for the self-diffusion of identically interacting particle systems with excluded mutual passage. We show that the conditional probability distribution of finding a particle at position $x_t$ after time $t$, when the particle was located at $x_0$ at $t=0$, follows a Gaussian distribution in the long-time limit, with variance $2W(t)\sim t^{1/2}$ for overdamped systems and with variance $2W(t)\sim t$ for classical systems. The asymptotic behavior of the mean-squared displacement, $W(t)$, is shown to be independent of the nature of interactions for homogeneous systems in the fluid state. Moreover, the long-time behavior of self-diffusion is determined by short-time and large-scale collective density fluctuations.

A funnel transformation is introduced, which acts recursively from higher towards lower temperatures. It biases the a priori probabilities of a canonical or generalized ensemble Metropolis simulation, so that they zoom in on the global energy minimum, if a funnel exists indeed. A first, crude approximation to the full transformation, called rugged Metropolis one (${\mathrm{R}\mathrm{M}}_1$), is tested for Met-Enkephalin. At 300 K the computational gain is a factor of 2 and, due to its simplicity, ${\mathrm{R}\mathrm{M}}_1$ is well suited to replace the conventional Metropolis updating for these kinds of systems.

It is demonstrated theoretically that the counter-rotating quadrupole mode in a vortex of Bose-Einstein condensates can decay into a pair of Kelvin modes via the Beliaev process. We calculate the spectral weight of a density-response function within the Bogoliubov framework, taking account of both Beliaev and Landau processes. Good agreement with experiment on ${}^{87}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{b}$ by Bretin et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 100403 (2003)] allows us to unambigiously identify the decayed mode as the Kelvin wave propagating along a vortex line.

Nonlinear optical media that are normally dispersive support a new type of localized (nondiffractive and nondispersive) wave packets that are X shaped in space and time and have slower than exponential decay. High-intensity X waves, unlike linear ones, can be formed spontaneously through a trigger mechanism of conical emission, thus playing an important role in experiments.

We analyze the phase stability and the response of a mixture of bosons and spin-polarized fermions in one dimension (1D). Unlike in 3D, phase separation happens for low fermion densities. The dynamics of the mixture at low energy is independent of the spin-statistics of the components, and the modes are essentially undamped.

We investigate adiabatic evolution of quantum states as governed by the nonlinear Schrödinger equation and provide examples of applications with a nonlinear tunneling model for Bose-Einstein condensates. Our analysis not only spells out conditions for adiabatic evolution of eigenstates but also characterizes the motion of noneigenstates which cannot be obtained from the former in the absence of the superposition principle. We find that Aharonov-Anandan phases play the role of classical canonical actions and are conserved in the adiabatic evolution of noneigenstates.

We study the formation of large vortex aggregates in a rapidly rotating dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensate. When we remove atoms from the rotating condensate with a tightly focused, resonant laser, the density can be locally suppressed, while fast circulation of a ring-shaped superflow around the area of suppressed density is maintained. Thus a giant vortex core comprising 7 to 60 phase singularities is formed. The giant core is only metastable, and it will refill with distinguishable single vortices after many rotation cycles. The surprisingly long lifetime of the core can be attributed to the influence of strong Coriolis forces in the condensate. In addition we have been able to follow the precession of off-center giant vortices for more than 20 cycles.

The relation between the distribution of work performed on a classical system by an external force switched on an arbitrary time scale and the corresponding equilibrium free energy difference is generalized to quantum systems. Using the adiabatic representation, we show that this relation holds for isolated systems as well as for systems coupled to a bath described by a master equation. A close formal analogy is established between the present “classical trajectory” picture over populations of adiabatic states and phase fluctuations (dephasing) of a quantum coherence in spectral line shapes, described by the stochastic Liouville equation.

Encouraged by experiments on ${}^4\mathrm{H}\mathrm{e}$ in aerogels, we confine planar spins in the pores of simulated aerogels (diffusion limited cluster-cluster aggregation) in order to study the effect of quenched disorder on the critical behavior of the three-dimensional $XY$ model. Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling are used to determine critical couplings $K_c$ and exponents. In agreement with experiments, clear evidence of change in the thermal critical exponents $\nu$ and $\alpha$ is found at nonzero volume fractions of impurities. These changes are explained in terms of hidden long-range correlations within disorder distributions.

For a model of interacting quantum particles of mass $m$ oscillating in a double-well crystalline field, a mechanism of its stabilization by quantum effects is described. In particular, a stability condition involving $m$, the interaction intensity, and the parameters of the crystalline field is given. It is independent of the temperature and is satisfied if $m$ is small enough and/or the tunneling frequency is big enough. It is shown that under this condition the infinite-volume free energy density is an analytic function of the external field and the displacement-displacement correlation function decays exponentially; hence, no phase transitions can arise at all temperatures. This gives a complete and rigorous answer to the question about the influence of quantum effects on structural phase transitions, the discussion of which was initiated in [T. Schneider, H. Beck, and E. Stoll, Phys. Rev. B 13, 1123 (1976)].

A dressed basis is used to calculate the dynamics of three-wave mixing between Bogoliubov quasiparticles in a Bose condensate. Because of the observed oscillations between different momentum modes, an energy splitting, analogous to the optical Mollow triplet, appears in the Beliaev damping spectrum of the excitations from the oscillating modes.

Recent experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates of ${}^{85}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{b}$ atoms near a Feshbach resonance have produced evidence for a condensate of diatomic molecules coexisting with the atom condensate. It should also be possible to create condensates of the triatomic molecules predicted by Efimov coexisting with the atom and dimer condensates. The smoking gun for the trimer condensate would be oscillatory dependence of observables on the binding energy of the trimer. It may also be possible to deduce the existence of the trimer condensate from the spectra of the bursts of atoms and dimers created in the disappearance of the trimers.

We investigate the impact of external periodic potentials on superdiffusive random walks known as Lévy flights and show that even strongly superdiffusive transport is substantially affected by the external field. Unlike ordinary random walks, Lévy flights are surprisingly sensitive to the shape of the potential while their asymptotic behavior ceases to depend on the Lévy index $\mu$. Our analysis is based on a novel generalization of the Fokker-Planck equation suitable for systems in thermal equilibrium. Thus, the results presented are applicable to the large class of situations in which superdiffusion is caused by topological complexity, such as diffusion on folded polymers and scale-free networks.

We study the collapse of large homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensates due to intrinsic attractive interactions. We observe the amplification of a local instability by seeding a momentum state $\mathbf{p}$ and suddenly switching the scattering length negative via a Feshbach resonance. We also observe the appearance of atoms in the conjugate momentum state as required by momentum conservation. For large condensates, the time scale for this depletion process becomes faster than that for global collapse.

In optical lattices where each site is occupied in its lowest energy state by a superposition of zero, one, and two atoms, one can in a controllable manner convert the atomic pair into a molecule while retaining the vacuum and one-atom amplitudes. The microscopic quantum coherence on each site between the vacuum and the single molecule component leads to a macroscopically populated molecular condensate when the lattice is removed.

We demonstrate that a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice forms a reconfigurable matter-wave structure with a band-gap spectrum, which resembles a nonlinear photonic crystal for light waves. We study in detail the case of a two-dimensional square optical lattice and show that this atomic band-gap structure allows nonlinear localization of atomic Bloch waves in the form of two-dimensional matter-wave gap solitons.