Suppression of elastic scattering loss for slowly colliding Bose-Einstein condensates

Superfluid suppression of the elastic scattering loss in atomic Bose condensed systems can be significant when the ratio of the relative velocity of the wave packets to the critical velocity is ∼1. We show how to incorporate the effect of such losses and their suppression into the time-dependent dynamics of two colliding condensate wave packets. We illustrate the magnitude of the effect through three-dimensional simulations of the collision dynamics of an |F=2,M_F=2〉 with an |F=2,M_F=1〉⁸⁷Rb condensate in a harmonic trap, as studied in a recent experiment [Maddaloni et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2413 (2000)]. These calculations show that the effect of elastic scattering and its suppression should be seen in the oscillatory center-of-mass amplitude of the M_F=1 wave packet for suitable experimental conditions.