Impurity Scattering in a Bose-Einstein Condensate at finite temperature

Abstract

We consider the effects of finite temperature on the scattering of impurity atoms in a BoseEinstein condensate, showing that the scattering rate is enhanced by the thermal atoms. Collisions can increase or decrease the impurity energy. Below the Landau velocity only the first process occurs, i.e., the collisions cool the condensate. Above the critical velocity the dissipative collisions prevail over the cooling ones for sufficiently low temperatures. These considerations are applied to a recent experiment.