Bose condensation and relaxation explosion in magnetically trapped atomic hydrogen

We predict and analyze nontrivial relaxational behavior of magnetically trapped gases near the Bose-condensation temperature Tc. Due to strong compression of the condensate by the inhomogeneous trapping field, particularly at low densities, the relaxation rate shows a strong, almost jumplike, increase below Tc. As a consequence the maximum fraction of condensate particles is limited to a few percent. This phenomenon can be called a ``relaxation explosion.'' We discuss its implication for the detectability of Bose-Einstein condensation in atomic hydrogen.