arXiv:cond-mat/0503585 · Physical Review A
Quantitative test of thermal field theory for Bose-Einstein condensates. II
S. A. Morgan
Abstract
We have recently derived a gapless theory of the linear response of a Bose-condensed gas to external perturbations at finite temperature and used it to explain quantitatively the measurements of condensate excitations and decay rates made at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics [D. S. Jin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 764 (1997)]. The theory describes the dynamic coupling between the condensate and noncondensate via a full quasiparticle description of the time-dependent normal and anomalous averages and includes all Beliaev and Landau processes. In this paper, we provide a full discussion of the numerical calculations and a detailed analysis of the theoretical results in the context of the JILA experiment. We provide unambiguous proof that the dipole modes are obtained accurately within our calculations and present quantitative results for the relative phase of the oscillations of the condensed and uncondensed atom clouds. One of the main difficulties in the implementation of the theory is obtaining results which are not sensitive to basis cutoff effects, and we have therefore developed a novel asymmetric summation method which solves this problem and dramatically improves the numerical convergence. This technique should make the implementation of the theory and its possible future extensions feasible for a wide range of condensate populations and trap geometries.