Fractional resonances in the atom-optical delta-kicked accelerator

Saunders, M.; Halkyard, P.L.; Gardiner, S.A.; Challis, K.J.

doi:10.1103/physreva.79.023423

Fractional resonances in the atom-optical delta-kicked accelerator

Saunders, M.; Halkyard, P.L.; Gardiner, S.A.; Challis, K.J.

Authors

M. Saunders

P.L. Halkyard

Professor Simon Gardiner s.a.gardiner@durham.ac.uk
Professor

K.J. Challis

Abstract

We consider resonant dynamics in a dilute atomic gas falling under gravity through a periodically pulsed standing-wave laser field. Our numerical calculations are based on a Monte Carlo method for an incoherent mixture of noninteracting plane waves, and we show that quantum resonances are highly sensitive to the relative acceleration between the atomic gas and the pulsed optical standing wave. For particular values of the atomic acceleration, we observe fractional resonances. We investigate the effect of the initial atomic momentum width on the fractional resonances and quantify the sensitivity of fractional resonances to thermal effects.

Citation

Saunders, M., Halkyard, P., Gardiner, S., & Challis, K. (2009). Fractional resonances in the atom-optical delta-kicked accelerator. Physical Review A, 79(2), https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.79.023423

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Feb 1, 2009
Deposit Date	Jun 30, 2010
Publicly Available Date	Jul 13, 2010
Journal	Physical Review A
Print ISSN	1050-2947
Electronic ISSN	1094-1622
Publisher	American Physical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	79
Issue	2
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.79.023423
Publisher URL	http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.79.023423