Coherent States in the Theory of Superfluidity

Abstract

It is shown that the coherent-state representation of a many-boson wave function may be identified with the order-parameter function conventionally used to describe a superfluid. The statistical mechanics of the many-boson system is reformulated in terms of the coherent states, and a theory of the Ginzburg-Landau form is recovered in an obvious approximation. The formalism is particularly useful for describing metastable states of finite superflow and the fluctuations which may cause spontaneous decay of such states.