Self-induced density modulations in the free expansion of Bose-Einstein condensates

We simulate numerically the free expansion of a repulsive Bose-Einstein condensate with an initially Gaussian density profile. We find a self-similar expansion only for weak interatomic repulsion. In contrast, for strong repulsion we observe the spontaneous formation of a shock wave at the surface followed by a significant depletion inside the cloud. In the expansion, contrary to the case of a classical viscous gas, the quantum fluid can generate radial rarefaction density waves with several minima and maxima. These intriguing nonlinear effects, never observed in free-expansion experiments with ultracold alkali-metal atoms, can be detected with the available setups.