Collective excitations of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of weak disorder and a two-dimensional optical lattice

Abstract: We investigate the combined effects of weak disorder and a two-dimensional (2D) optical lattice on the collective excitations of a harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) at zero temperature. Accordingly, we generalize the hydrodynamic equations of superfluid for a weakly interacting Bose gas in a 2D optical lattice to include the effects of weak disorder. Our analytical results for the collective frequencies beyond the mean-field approximation reveal the peculiar role of disorder, interplaying with the 2D optical lattice and interatomic interaction, on elementary excitations along the 3D to 1D dimensional crossover. In particular, consequences of disorder on the phonon propagation and surface modes are analyzed in detail. The experimental scenario is also proposed.