PGPE theory of finite temperature collective modes for a trapped Bose gas

TL;DR

This paper develops a formalism based on the projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation to simulate and analyze finite temperature collective modes in trapped Bose gases, providing a quantitative comparison with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a new theoretical approach to simulate finite temperature dynamics in Bose gases and compares it with experimental results for the first time.

Findings

Accurately predicts frequencies of quadrupolar modes at finite temperatures.

Determines phase relationships between condensate and noncondensate modes.

Calculates damping rates of condensate modes.

Abstract

We develop formalism based on the projected Gross Pitaevskii equation to simulate the finite temperature collective mode experiments of Jin et al. [PRL 78, 764 (1997)]. We examine the $m=0$ and $m=2$ quadrupolar modes on the temperature range $0.51T_c-0.83T_c$ and calculate the frequencies of, and phase between, the condensate and noncondensate modes, and the condensate mode damping rate. This study is the first quantitative comparison of the projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation to experimental results in a dynamical regime.