On 3 March 2009, SCL's Antun Balaz started a series of introductory seminars on Bose-Einstein condensation. The first one was devoted to discussion of off-diagonal long-range order and definition of one-body density matrix and particle density in configuration and momentum space. Density profiles calculation and ballistic approximation for typical BEC experiments with time-of-flight absorption measurements were described in detail.

In a second lecture, given on 10 March 2009, typical BEC experiments were presented, with some basic details on magneto-optical trapping, laser and evaporative cooling. After that, order parameter was introduced and discussed in relation to the Bogoliubov mean-field approach. Calculation of global properties of Bose-Einstein condensates was illustrated on the example of ideal Bose gas in a box, for which the condensation temperature was obtained in the semiclassical approximation.