Quantum kinetic theory of a Bose-Einstein gas confined in a lattice

Abstract

We extend our earlier work on the nonequilibrium dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate initially loaded into a one-dimensional optical lattice. From the two-particle-irreducible (2PI) closed-time-path (CTP) effective action for the Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian we derive causal equations of motion that treat mean-field effects and quantum fluctuations on an equal footing. We demonstrate that these equations reproduce well-known limits when simplifying approximations are introduced. For example, when the system dynamics admits two-time separation, we obtain the Kadanoff-Baym equations of quantum kinetic theory, and in the weakly interacting limit, we show that the local equilibrium solutions of our equations reproduce the second-order corrections to the self-energy of the type originally derived by Beliaev. The derivation of quantum kinetic equations from the 2PI-CTP effective action not only checks the viability of the formalism but also shows it to be a tractable framework for going beyond standard Boltzmann equations of motion.