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Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 190405 (2008) [4 pages]

Single-Particle Tunneling in Strongly Driven Double-Well Potentials

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E. Kierig1, U. Schnorrberger1, A. Schietinger1, J. Tomkovic1,2, and M. K. Oberthaler1
1Kirchhoff-Institut für Physik, Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 227, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
2Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany

Received 23 January 2008; published 14 May 2008

We report on the first direct observation of coherent control of single-particle tunneling in a strongly driven double-well potential. In our setup atoms propagate in a periodic arrangement of double wells allowing the full control of the driving parameters such as frequency, amplitude, and even the space-time symmetry. Our experimental findings are in quantitative agreement with the predictions of the corresponding Floquet theory and are also compared to the predictions of a simple two mode model. Our experiments reveal directly the critical dependence of coherent destruction of tunneling on the generalized parity symmetry.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.190405
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.190405
PACS:
03.75.Be, 03.65.Xp, 33.80.Be

*http://www.kip.uni-heidelberg.de/matterwaveoptics

cdt@matterwave.de