Interference of a chain of Bose condensates in the Pitaevskii-Gross approximation

A long chain of Bose condensates freely expands and interferes after being released from an optical lattice. The interference fringes are well resolved both in the case of equal phases of the condensates and in the case of fluctuating phases. In the second case the positions of the fringes also fluctuate. The spectrum of the spatial density distribution, however, is reproducible despite the fluctuations. Moreover two types of peaks are distinguishable in the spectrum. The first type arises due to the phase fluctuations, the second type is associated with the coherence between the condensates. In the framework of the Pitaevskii-Gross equation we calculate the interference of the condensates and compare the calculation with experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 090403 (2019)]. The calculation reproduces the positions of the spectrum peaks, including the dependence on the interparticle interaction. The calculated heights of the peaks, however, in some cases differ with the experimental ones.