Gravity-Sensitive Quantum Dynamics in Cold Atoms

Abstract

We subject a falling cloud of cold cesium atoms to periodic kicks from a sinusoidal potential created by a vertical standing wave of off-resonant laser light. By controllably accelerating the potential, we show quantum accelerator mode dynamics to be highly sensitive to the effective gravitational acceleration when this is close to specific, resonant values. This quantum sensitivity to a control parameter is reminiscent of that associated with classical chaos, and promises techniques for precision measurement.

4 pages, 2 figures, minor changes in response to referees' comments

References in corpus (1)

• Bloch oscillations of ultracold atoms: a tool for a metrological determination of $h/m_{Rb}$

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Quantum synchronization
• General Quantum Resonances of the Kicked Particle
• Quantum random walks using quantum accelerator modes
• Quantum Mechanical Cumulant Dynamics near Stable Periodic Orbits in Phase Space: Application to the classical-like dynamics of quantum accelerator modes
• A model of deterministic detector with dynamical decoherence