Trapped Bose-Einstein condensates at finite temperature: A two-gas model

A simple picture describes the results of recent treatments of partially-condensed, dilute, trapped Bose gases at temperature T > 0. The condensate wave function is nearly identical to that of a T = 0 condensate with the same number of condensate atoms, No. The cloud of non-condensed atoms is described by the statistical mechanics of an ideal Bose gas in the combined potentials of the magnetic trap and the cloud-condensate interaction. We provide a physical motivation for this result, show how it emerges in the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov-Popov approximation, and explore some of its implications for future experiments.