We analyze depletion of the dark soliton in a Bose-Einstein condensate in the limit of weak interaction between atoms. The condensate initially prepared in the excited dark soliton state is losing atoms because of spontaneous quantum depletion. These atoms are depleted from the soliton state into single-particle states with nonzero density in the notch of the soliton. As a result the image of the soliton is losing contrast. This quantum depletion mechanism is efficient even at zero temperature when a thermal cloud is absent.

• Received 4 October 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.66.043615