Creation and counting of defects in a temperature-quenched Bose-Einstein condensate

We study the spontaneous formation of defects in the order parameter of a trapped ultracold bosonic gas while crossing the critical temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation at different rates. The system has the shape of an elongated ellipsoid, whose transverse width can be varied. For slow enough temperature quenches we find a power-law scaling of the average defect number with the quench rate, as predicted by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. A breakdown of such a scaling is found for fast quenches, leading to a saturation of the average defect number. We suggest an explanation for this saturation in terms of the mutual interactions among defects.