  We study superradiant scattering off Bose-Einstein condensates by solving the
semiclassical Maxwell-Schroedinger equations describing the coupled dynamics of
matter-wave and optical fields. Taking the spatial dependence of these fields
along the condensate axis into account, we are able to reproduce and explain
many of the characteristic features observed in the experiments of Inouye et
al. [Science 285, 571 (1999)] and Schneble et al. [Science 300, 475 (2003)],
such as the shape of the atomic side-mode distributions for forward and
backward scattering, the spatial asymmetry between forward and backward side
modes, and the depletion of the condensate center observed for forward
scattering.
