Calorimetry of a Bose–Einstein-condensed photon gas

Tobias Damm, Julian Schmitt, Qi Liang, David Dung, Frank Vewinger, Martin Weitz and Jan Klaers ()
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Tobias Damm: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Atominstitut, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Universität Bonn
Julian Schmitt: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Atominstitut, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Universität Bonn
Qi Liang: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Atominstitut, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Universität Bonn
David Dung: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Atominstitut, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Universität Bonn
Frank Vewinger: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Atominstitut, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Universität Bonn
Martin Weitz: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Atominstitut, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Universität Bonn
Jan Klaers: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Atominstitut, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Universität Bonn

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-5

Abstract: Abstract Phase transitions, as the condensation of a gas to a liquid, are often revealed by a discontinuous behaviour of thermodynamic quantities. For liquid helium, for example, a divergence of the specific heat signals the transition from the normal fluid to the superfluid state. Apart from liquid helium, determining the specific heat of a Bose gas has proven to be a challenging task, for example, for ultracold atomic Bose gases. Here we examine the thermodynamic behaviour of a trapped two-dimensional photon gas, a system that allows us to spectroscopically determine the specific heat and the entropy of a nearly ideal Bose gas from the classical high temperature to the Bose-condensed quantum regime. The critical behaviour at the phase transition is clearly revealed by a cusp singularity of the specific heat. Regarded as a test of quantum statistical mechanics, our results demonstrate a quantitative agreement with its predictions at the microscopic level.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11340

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