Propagation of First and Second Sound in a Highly-Elongated Trapped Bose Condensed Gas at Finite temperatures

Abstract

We study sound propagation in Bose-condensed gases in a highly-elongated harmonic trap at finite temperatures. This problem is studied within the framework of Zaremba-Nikuni-Griffin (ZNG) formalism, which consistent of a generalized Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation for the condensate and the kinetic equation for a thermal cloud. We extend the ZNG formalism to deal with a highly-anisotropic trap potential, and use it to simulate sound propagation using the trap parameters corresponding to the experiment on sound pulse propagation at finite temperature. We focus on the high-density two-fluid hydrodynamic regime, and explore the possibility of observing first and second sound pulse propagation. The results of numerical simulation are compared with an analyitical results derived from linearized ZNG hydrodynamic equations. We show that the second sound mode makes a dominant contribution to condensate motion in relatively high temperature, while the first sound mode makes an appreciable contribution.