Finite-Temperature Simulations of the Scissors Mode in Bose-Einstein Condensed Gases

The dynamics of a trapped Bose-condensed gas at finite temperatures is described by a generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the condensate order parameter and a semiclassical kinetic equation for the thermal cloud, solved using $N$-body simulations. The two components are coupled by mean fields as well as collisional processes that transfer atoms between the two. We use this scheme to investigate scissors modes in anisotropic traps as a function of temperature. Frequency shifts and damping rates of the condensate mode are extracted, and are found to be in good agreement with recent experiments.