Collapse in the symmetric Gross-Pitaevskii equation

A generic mechanism of collapse in the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with attractive interparticle interactions is gained by reformulating this equation as Newton's equation of motion for a system of particles with a constraint. 'Quantum pressure' effects give rise to formation of a potential barrier around the emerging singularity, which prevents a fraction of the particles from falling into the singularity. For reasonable initial widths of the condensate, the fraction of collapsing particles for spherically symmetric traps is found to be consistently about 0.7.