Observation of chaotic and regular dynamics in atom-optics billiards.
We report on experimental observations of chaotic and regular motion of ultracold atoms confined by a billiard-shaped optical dipole potential induced by a rapidly scanning laser beam. To investigate the dynamics of the atoms confined by such an "atom-optics" billiard we measure the decay of the number of trapped atoms through a hole on the boundary. A fast and purely exponential decay, the clear signature of chaotic motion, is found for a stadium billiard, but not for a circular or an elliptical billiard, in agreement with theory. We also investigated the effects of decoherence, velocity spread, and gravity on regular and chaotic motion.
Friedman
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N
Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Kaplan
A
A
Carasso
D
D
Davidson
N
N