Superfluidity of the BEC at finite temperature

Abstract

We use the classical fields approximation to study a translational flow of the condensate with respect to the thermal cloud in a weakly interacting Bose gas. We study both, subcritical and supercritical relative velocity cases and analyze in detail a state of stationary flow which is reached in the dynamics. This state corresponds to the thermal equilibrium, which is characterized by the relative velocity of the condensate and the thermal cloud. The superfluidity manifests itself in the existence of many thermal equilibria varying in (the value of this velocity) the relative velocity between the condensate and the thermal cloud. We pay a particular attention to excitation spectra in a phonon as well as in a particle regime. Finally, we introduce a measure of the amount of the superfluid fraction in a weakly interacting Bose gas, allowing for the precise distinction between the superfluid and the condensed fractions in a single and consistent framework.