Quantum multimode model of elastic scattering from Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

Mean field approximation treats only coherent aspects of the evolution of a Bose-Einstein condensate. However, in many experiments some atoms scatter out of the condensate. We study a semianalytic model of two counterpropagating atomic Gaussian wave packets incorporating the dynamics of incoherent scattering processes. Within the model we can treat processes of the elastic collision of atoms into the initially empty modes, and observe how, with growing occupation, the bosonic enhancement is slowly kicking in. A condition for the bosonic enhancement effect is found in terms of relevant parameters. Scattered atoms form a squeezed state. Not only are we able to calculate the dynamics of mode occupation, but also the full statistics of scattered atoms.