Damping of condensate collective modes due to equilibration with the non-condensate

Abstract

We consider the damping of condensate collective modes at finite temperatures arising from lack of equilibrium between the condensate and the non-condensate atoms, an effect that is ignored in the usual discussion of the collisionless region. As a first approximation, we ignore the dynamics of the thermal cloud. Our calculations should be applicable to collective modes of the condensate which are oscillating out-of-phase with the thermal cloud. We obtain a generalized Stringari equation of motion for the condensate at finite temperatures, which includes a damping term associated with the fact that the condensate is not in diffusive equilibrium with the static thermal cloud. This inter-component collisional damping of the condensate modes is comparable in magnitude to the Landau damping considered in the recent literature.