Chaotic dynamics of thermal atoms in labyrinths created by optical lattices

TL;DR

This paper investigates the complex dynamics, including chaos, of thermal atoms in specially structured optical lattices with non-trivial geometries, highlighting how laser intensity influences their behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a study of chaotic and quasi-periodic dynamics of thermal atoms in optical lattices with cylindrical symmetry, analyzing how system parameters affect chaos.

Findings

Chaos probability varies with laser intensity.

Spectral density effectively indicates chaos.

Chaotic trajectories show long-tail distribution of permanency times.

Abstract

We study the dynamics of non interacting thermal atoms embedded in structured optical lattices with non trivial geometry. The lattice would be generated by two counter propagating modes with parabolic cylindrical symmetry and we concentrate on the quasi conservative red detuned far-off-resonance regime. The system exhibits quasi periodic and chaotic behaviors whose probability can be controlled by varying the intensity of the beams. The spectral density of the trajectories is used as a chaos signature. An analysis of permanency times for chaotic trajectories that visit more than one potential well reveals a distribution with a long tail.