Low-energy properties of a one-dimensional system of interacting bosons with boundaries

The ground state properties and low-lying excitations of a (quasi) one-dimensional system of longitudinally confined interacting bosons are studied. This is achieved by extending Haldane's harmonic-fluid description to open boundary conditions. The boson density, one-particle density matrix, and momentum distribution are obtained accounting for finite-size and boundary effects. Friedel oscillations are found in the density. Finite-size scaling of the momentum distribution at zero momentum is proposed as a method to obtain from the experiment the exponent that governs phase correlations. The strong correlations between bosons induced by reduced dimensionality and interactions are displayed by a Bijl-Jastrow wave function for the ground state, which is also derived. (author)