Theory of excitations of the condensate and non-condensate at finite temperatures

— We give an overview of the current theory of collective modes in trapped atomic gases at finite temperatures, when the dynamics of the condensate and non-condensate must both be considered. A simple introduction is given to the quantum field formulation of the dynamics of an interacting Bose-condensed system, based on equations of motion for the condensate wavefunction and singleparticle Green’s functions for the non-condensate atoms. We discuss the nature of excitations in the mean-field collisionless region, including the Beliaev secondorder approximation for the self-energies. We also sketch the derivation of coupled two-fluid hydrodynamic equations using a simple kinetic equation which includes collisions between condensate and non-condensate atoms.