  Using a numerical implementation of the truncated Wigner approximation, we
simulate the experiment reported by Ramanathan et al. in Phys. Rev. Lett. 106,
130401 (2011), in which a Bose-Einstein condensate is created in a toroidal
trap and set into rotation via a phase imprinting technique. A potential
barrier is then placed in the trap to study the decay of the superflow. We find
that the current decays via thermally activated phase slips, which can also be
visualized as vortices crossing the barrier region in the radial direction.
Adopting the notion of critical velocity used in the experiment, we determine
it to be lower than the local speed of sound at the barrier, in contradiction
to the predictions of the zero-temperature Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We map
out the superfluid decay rate and critical velocity as a function of
temperature and observe a strong dependence. Thermal fluctuations offer a
partial explanation of the experimentally observed reduction of the critical
velocity from the phonon velocity.
