Thermodynamic Analogies Between Bose-Einstein Condensation and Black-Body Radiation

Abstract

We discuss the thermodynamic properties of a bosonic gas trapped in a harmonic potential. We identify properly the extensive thermodynamic variable equivalent to the volume and the intensive thermodynamic variable equivalent to the pressure. With these variables one is able to deduce all the thermodynamics of the system. From this point of view, an interesting analogy with Black-Body radiation emerges, showing that at and below the critical temperature, the non-condensate fraction of atoms behaves thermodynamically like a gas of massless particles.