Response of Bose-Einstein condensates to external perturbations at finite temperature

We present a theory of the linear response of a Bose-Einstein-condensed gas to external perturbations at finite temperature. The theory developed here is the basis of a recent quantitative explanation of the measurements of condensate excitations and decay rates made at JILA [D. S. Jin , Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 764 (1997)]. The formalism is based on a dynamic, number-conserving, mean-field scheme and is valid in the collisionless limit of well-defined quasiparticles. The theory is gapless, consistent with the generalized Kohn theorem for the dipole modes, and includes the time-dependent normal and anomalous averages, Beliaev and Landau processes, and all relevant finite-size effects. The important physical process where the thermal cloud is driven directly by the external perturbation is explicitly included. This is required for consistency with the dipole modes and is also needed to explain the JILA observations.