paper

The role of quasi-momentum in the resonant dynamics of the atom-optics kicked rotor

arXiv:physics/0505143 · doi:10.1088/0305-4470/38/49/007

Abstract

We examine the effect of the initial atomic momentum distribution on the dynamics of the atom-optical realisation of the quantum kicked rotor. The atoms are kicked by a pulsed optical lattice, the periodicity of which implies that quasi-momentum is conserved in the transport problem. We study and compare experimentally and theoretically two resonant limits of the kicked rotor: in the vicinity of the quantum resonances and in the semiclassical limit of vanishing kicking period. It is found that for the same experimental distribution of quasi-momenta, significant deviations from the kicked rotor model are induced close to quantum resonance, while close to the classical resonance (i.e. for small kicking period) the effect of the quasi-momentum vanishes.

10 pages, 4 figures, to be published in J. Phys. A, Special Issue on 'Trends in Quantum Chaotic Scattering'

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