Expansion of a quantum degenerate boson-fermion mixture

We study the expansion of an ultracold boson-fermion mixture released from an elongated magnetic trap, by using a scaling approach. We discuss in detail the role of the boson-fermion interaction on the evolution of the radial-to-axial aspect ratio of the condensate, and show that the latter depends crucially on the relative dynamics of the condensate and degenerate Fermi gas in the radial direction, which is characterized by the ratio between the trapping frequencies for fermions and bosons. The numerical solution of the scaling equations provides a reasonable agreement with the recent experiment [G. Roati et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 150403 (2002)].