Explosion of a collapsing Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

We show that elastic collisions between atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive interactions can lead to an explosion that ejects a large fraction of the collapsing condensate. We study variationally the dynamics of this explosion and find excellent agreement with recent experiments on magnetically trapped 85Rb. We also determine the energy and angular distribution of the ejected atoms during the collapse.