Observation of islands of stability in soft wall atom-optics billiards.
We report on numerical and experimental observations of islands of stability induced in a Bunimovich stadium atom-optics billiard by a soft wall repulsive potential. A deviation from exponential decay of the survival probability of atoms in an open billiard is observed, and explained by the presence of these stable islands and a sticky region surrounding them. We also investigate islands in dispersing billiards with soft walls, and predict a new mechanism for their formation.
Kaplan
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A
Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Friedman
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N
Andersen
M
M
Davidson
N
N