Effects of non-condensed atoms on condensate dynamics
This is a new project which aims to extend our previous work on the dynamics of atomic Bose condensates to include the effects of non-condensed atoms (quantum fluctuations in the condensate wavefunction). The non-condensed atoms will, at the very least, act as a heat bath for the condensate allowing it to dissipate energy and enabling quantum decoherence. We aim to employ a range of theoretical/numerical approaches to the inclusion of such fluctuations in order to probe their ranges of validity in order to improve agreements with experiment.