Three-body decay of a rubidium Bose–Einstein condensate

Abstract.We have measured the three-body decay of a Bose–Einstein condensate of rubidium (87Rb) atoms prepared in the doubly polarized ground state F=mF=2. Our data are taken for a peak atomic density in the condensate varying between 2×1014 cm-3 at initial time and 7×1013 cm-3, 16 s later. Taking into account the influence of the uncondensed atoms on the decay of the condensate, we deduce a rate constant for condensed atoms L=1.8 (±0.5) ×10-29 cm6 s-1. For these densities we did not find a significant contribution of two-body processes such as spin dipole relaxation.