Speed of sound in disordered Bose-Einstein condensates

Disorder modifies the sound-wave excitation spectrum of Bose-Einstein condensates. We consider the classical hydrodynamic limit, where the disorder correlation length is much longer than the condensate healing length. By perturbation theory, we compute the phonon lifetime and the correction to the speed of sound. This correction is found to be negative in all dimensions, with universal asymptotics for smooth correlations. Considering in detail optical speckle potentials, we find a quite rich intermediate structure. This has consequences for the average density of states, particularly in one dimension, where we find a “boson dip” next to a sharp “boson peak” as function of frequency. In one dimension, our prediction is verified in detail by a numerical integration of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.