Effects of finite momentum width on the reversal dynamics in a BEC based atom optics delta-kicked rotor

Abstract

This experimental work demonstrates the importance of finite-width effects in the evolution of a quantum system, where the results deviate considerably from the plane wave approximation even for an initial state with a very narrow momentum width i.e a Bose–Einstein condensate. The system under consideration is an atom optics δ-kicked rotor for which a fidelity based measurement has been proposed to possess a rapid scaling of sensitivity (N−3) with pulse number N. Although attractive, we demonstrate that this scaling does not hold in the regime where the momentum selectivity of the pulse sequence becomes significantly smaller than the momentum width of the initial state. Additionally, the momentum distribution post kicking shows a lattice-phase dependent intra-order and inter-order asymmetry in the diffracted orders. The intra-order asymmetry, in which no net momentum current is present, is a previously unreported type of effect. For a two pulse case, the inter-order asymmetry signal is found to be about five times more sensitive to the resonance than the initial state fidelity. Both of these asymmetries provide a zero-crossing signal which can be used to diagnose any undesirable lattice phase offset at resonant and off-resonant pulse periods.