Fractional resonances in the atom-optical delta-kicked accelerator

TL;DR

This paper investigates fractional quantum resonances in an atom-optical delta-kicked accelerator, highlighting their sensitivity to acceleration, initial momentum distribution, and thermal effects through numerical simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of fractional resonances in the atom-optical delta-kicked accelerator, emphasizing their dependence on acceleration and initial conditions.

Findings

Fractional resonances occur at specific accelerations.

Resonances are highly sensitive to initial momentum width.

Thermal effects influence the visibility of fractional resonances.

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 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.