On two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in a ring

Abstract: A Bose-Einstein condensate is a type of gas consisting of one or more types of particles called bosons which are cooled to a temperature very close the absolute zero. Under these conditions the particles all start to occupy their lowest quantum state. Once in these states it is necessary to use quantum physics to describe the behaviour of the particles by the means of a wave function which describes the probability of finding the particles in different locations. In this thesis we will study a gas consisting of two components. The wave function satisfies the Schrödinger equation, which is a linear partial differential equation. The gas will be considered to be confined within a thin ring with a cross section small enough to treat it as one dimensional. By using the mean field approximation we're able to consider a much simpler model than the individual particle interaction and reduce the many-body problem to a one-body problem. However, the linear Schrödinger equation is replaced by the non-linear Schrödinger equation. We will also investigate the mean-field yrast spectrum, where these states are the ones with minimum energy for a given angular momentum. The existence of a minimum gives the possibility of having persistent currents as argued in previous research. In order to identify the yrast states, we first look for critical points of the energy under the constraints of total probability mass and angular momentum using a special Ansatz. We then try to determine if they are minimizers using analytic and numerical methods.