Atomic de Broglie-Wave Chaos

摘要

Coherent motion of cold atomic wave packets is studied in a one-dimensional optical potential created by a standing laser wave. Their evolution is interpreted in the dressed-state basis where it is the motion in a bipotential. Man-ifestations of de Broglie-Wave chaos, caused by nonadiabatic transitions between components of this bipotential, are found. The probability of those transitions is large in that range of the atom-field detuning and recoil frequency where the classical center-of-mass motion is shown to be chaotic in the sense of exponential sensitivity to small variations in initial conditions or parameters.