The Inhomogeneous Gaussian Free Field, with application to ground state correlations of trapped 1d Bose gases

Abstract

This formalism is then applied to the study of ground state correlations of the Lieb-Liniger gas trapped in an external potential V(x) . Relations with previous works on inhomogeneous Luttinger liquids are discussed. The main innovation here is in the identification of local observables \hat{O} (x) in the microscopic model with their field theory counterparts \partial_x h, e^{i h(x)}, e^{-i h(x)} , etc., which involve non-universal coefficients that themselves depend on position — a fact that, to the best of our knowledge, was overlooked in previous works on correlation functions of inhomogeneous Luttinger liquids —, and that can be calculated thanks to Bethe Ansatz form factors formulae available for the homogeneous Lieb-Liniger model. Combining those position-dependent coefficients with the correlation functions of the IGFF, ground state correlation functions of the trapped gas are obtained. Numerical checks from DMRG are provided for density-density correlations and for the one-particle density matrix, showing excellent agreement.