  Raman et al. have found experimental evidence for a critical velocity under
which there is no dissipation when a detuned laser beam is moved in a
Bose-Einstein condensate. We analyze the origin of this critical velocity in
the low density region close to the boundary layer of the cloud. In the frame
of the laser beam, we do a blow up on this low density region which can be
described by a Painlev\'e equation and write the approximate equation satisfied
by the wave function in this region. We find that there is always a drag around
the laser beam. Though the beam passes through the surface of the cloud and the
sound velocity is small in the Painlev\'e boundary layer, the shedding of
vortices starts only when a threshold velocity is reached. This critical
velocity is lower than the critical velocity computed for the corresponding 2D
problem at the center of the cloud. At low velocity, there is a stationary
solution without vortex and the drag is small. At the onset of vortex shedding,
that is above the critical velocity, there is a drastic increase in drag.
