  We study the coherence properties of an atom laser, which operates by
extracting atoms from a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate via a two-photon Raman
process, by analyzing a recent experiment. We obtain good agreement with the
experimental data by solving the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation in
three dimensions both numerically and with a Thomas-Fermi model. The coherence
length is strongly affected by the space-dependent phase developed by the
condensate when the trapping potential is turned off.
