Observation of chaotic and regular dynamics in atom-optics billiards

Nir Friedman, Ariel Kaplan, Dina Carasso and Nir Davidson

We report on experimental observations of chaotical and regular motion of ultra-cold 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, and not for a circular nor an elliptical billiard, in agreement with theory. We also investigated the effects of de-coherence, velocity spread, and gravity on the regular and chaotic motion.

"Observation of chaotic and regular dynamics in atom-optics billiards", N. Friedman, A. Kaplan, D. Carasso, and N. Davidson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1518 (2001). (PDF)

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