On the theory of light and atomic backscattering in the Bose-Einstein condensate of a dilute gas

A semiclassical theory of light scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate of a dilute gas is developed. It is shown that the results of theoretical calculations are in qualitative agreement with the data obtained from recent experiments on the observation of atoms scattered in the backward direction with respect to the direction of a pump laser beam. It is demonstrated that there can arise a field that propagates in the backward direction and whose intensity exceeds the intensity of conventional Rayleigh scattering.