The occurrence of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate is studied for an atomic system near a zero energy resonance of the binary scattering process, with a large and positive scattering length. The interaction potential is modeled by a pseudo-potential having one bound state. Using a variational Gaussian ansatz for the
N-body density operator, we discuss the thermodynamic properties at low temperature and the relative stability of the system towards the formation of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate. We also derive an approximate Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the molecular condensate leading to the prediction of a Bogoliubov spectrum.
We consider scattering atoms from a fully Bose-Einstein condensed gas. If we take these atoms to be identical to those in the Bose-Einstein condensate, this scattering process is to a large extent analogous to Andreev reflection from the interface between a superconducting and a normal metal. We determine the scattering wave function in both the absence and the presence of a vortex. Our results show a qualitative difference between these two cases that can be understood as due to an Aharonov-Bohm effect. It leads to the possibility to experimentally study vortices in a nondestructive way.