We discuss the kinetic theory for evaporative cooling of a dilute collisional gas in a trap. The analysis in O. J. Luiten et al., Phys. Rev. A 53, 381 (1996) is extended to incorporate a time-dependent trap strength and truncation energy. We employ the equations obtained to predict the efficiency of evaporative cooling of sodium atoms in a Ioffe trap and realize that a time-dependent trap strength can be crucial for the cooling. The calculations are classical in the sense that no effects of quantum statistics are taken into account: nevertheless the results of the calculations are useful in order to reveal experimental routes towards a Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms.

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.55.1281