Modeling Bose-Einstein condensed gases at finite temperatures with N-body simulations

We consider a model of a dilute Bose-Einstein condensed gas at finite temperatures, where the condensate coexists in a trap with a cloud of thermal excitations. Within the Zaremba, Nikuni, and Griffin formalism, the dynamics of the condensate is described by a generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation, while the thermal cloud is represented by a semiclassical kinetic equation. Our numerical approach simulates the kinetic equation using a cloud of representative test particles, while collisions are treated by means of a Monte Carlo sampling technique. A full three-dimensional split-operator fast Fourier transform method is used to evolve the condensate wave function. We give details regarding the numerical methods used and discuss simulations carried out to test the accuracy of the numerics. We use this scheme to simulate the monopole mode in a spherical trap. The dynamical coupling between the condensate and thermal cloud is responsible for frequency shifts and damping of the condensate collective mode. We compare our results to previous theoretical approaches, not only to confirm the reliability of our numerical scheme, but also to check the validity of approximations which have been used in the past.