Damping Of Confined Excitation Modes Of One-Dimensional Condensates In An Optical Lattice

We study the damping of the collective excitations of Bose-Einstein condensates in a harmonic trap potential loaded in an optical lattice. In the presence of a confining potential the system is inhomogeneous and the collective excitations are characterized by a set of discrete confined phononlike excitations. We derive a general convenient analytical description for the damping rate, which takes into account the trapping potential and the optical lattice for the Landau and Beliaev processes at any temperature T. At high temperature or weak spatial confinement, we show that both mechanisms display a linear dependence on T. In the quantum limit, we find that the Landau damping is exponentially suppressed at low temperatures and the total damping is independent of T. Our theoretical predictions for the damping rate under the thermal regime is in complete correspondence with the experimental values reported for the one-dimensional (1D) condensate of sodium atoms. We show that the laser intensity can tune the collision process, allowing a resonant effect for the condensate lifetime. Also, we study the influence of the attractive or repulsive nonlinear terms on the decay rate of the collective excitations. A general expression for the renormalized Goldstone frequency is obtained as a function of the 1D nonlinear self-interaction parameter, laser intensity, and temperature.