Generic model of an atom laser

Abstract

We present a generic model of an atom laser by including a pump and loss term in the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We show that there exists a threshold for the pump above which the mean matter field assumes a nonvanishing value in the steady state. We study the transient regime of this atom laser, and find oscillations around the stationary solution even in the presence of a loss term. These oscillations are damped away when we introduce a position-dependent loss term. For this case we present a modified Thomas-Fermi solution that takes into account the pump and loss. Our generic model of an atom laser is analogous to the semiclassical theory of the laser.