HYDRODYNAMIC EXCITATIONS OF BOSE CONDENSATES IN ANISOTROPIC TRAPS

The collective excitations of Bose condensates in anisotropic axially symmetric harmonic traps are investigated in the hydrodynamic and Thom as-Fermi limit. We identify an additional conserved quantity, besides the axial angular momentum and the total energy, and separate the wave equation in elliptic coordinates. The solution is thereby reduced to the algebraic problem of diagonalizing finite-dimensional matrices. Th e classical quasiparticle dynamics in the local-density approximation for energies of the order of the chemical potential is shown to be cha otic.