Coherence properties of a two-dimensional trapped Bose gas around the superfluid transition

Abstract

We measure the momentum distribution of a two-dimensional trapped Bose gas and observe the increase of the range of coherence around the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition. We quantitatively compare our observed profiles to both a Hartree-Fock mean-field theory and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. In the normal phase, the momentum distribution is observed to sharpen well before the phase transition. This behavior is partially captured in a mean-field approach, in contrast to the physics of the BKT transition.