Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3304–3307 (1996)Can a Single-Pulse Standing Wave Induce Chaos in Atomic Motion?Received 31 October 1995; published in the issue dated 29 April 1996 We measure momentum transferred from a single pulse of a standing wave of light to a sample of ultracold sodium atoms, and observe a sharp increase in the momentum transfer when the pulse duration exceeds a critical value τcr. A classical analysis of nonlinear resonances shows that resonance overlap occurs at τcr, and there is a transition to global classical chaos. These results are a direct experimental test of the “resonance overlap criteria” and illustrate that even the turning on and off of a simple spatially periodic interaction can lead to surprising and novel results. © 1996 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.3304
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.3304
PACS:
05.45.+b, 32.80.Pj, 42.50.Vk
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