Coherence lifetimes of excitations in an atomic condensate due to the thin spectrum

Abstract

We study the quantum coherence properties of a finite sized atomic condensate using a toy-model and the thin spectrum model formalism. The decoherence time for a condensate in the ground state, nominally taken as a variational symmetry breaking state, is investigated for both zero and finite temperatures. We also consider the lifetimes for Bogoliubov quasi-particle excitations, and contrast them to the observability window determined by the ground state coherence time. The lifetimes are shown to exhibit a general characteristic dependence on the temperature, determined by the thin spectrum accompanying the spontaneous symmetry breaking ground state.