Thermal fading of the $1/k^4$-tail of the momentum distribution induced by the hole anomaly

Abstract

We study the thermal behavior of correlations in a one-dimensional Bose gas with tunable interaction strength, crossing from weakly-repulsive to Tonks-Girardeau regime. A reference temperature in this system is that of the hole anomaly, observed as a peak in the specific heat and a maximum in the chemical potential. We find that at large momenta $k$ and temperature above the anomaly threshold, the tail $\mathcal{C}/k^4$ of the momentum distribution (proportional to the Tan contact $\mathcal{C}$) is screened by the $1/|k{|}^3$-term due to a dramatic thermal increase of the internal energy emerging from the thermal occupation of spectral excitation states. The same fading is consistently revealed in the behavior at short distances $x$ of the one-body density matrix (OBDM) where the $|x{|}^3$-dependence disappears for temperatures above the anomaly. We obtain a new general analytic tail for the momentum distribution and a minimum $k$ fixing its validity range, both calculated with exact Bethe-Ansatz method and valid in all interaction and thermal regimes, crossing from the quantum to the classical gas limit. Our predictions are confirmed by comparison with ab-initio Path Integral Monte Carlo calculations for the momentum distribution and the OBDM exploring a wide range of interaction strength and temperature. Our results unveil a novel connection between excitations and correlations. We expect them to be of interest to any cold atomic, nuclear, solid-state, electronic and spin system exhibiting an anomaly or a thermal second-order phase transition.

Comments: Main Text: 7 pages, 4 figures; Supplemental Material: 10 pages, 8 figures