Experimental Studies of a Kicked BEC

In this poster we will present results of an experiment in which a pulsed off resonant standing light wave is incident upon an all optical BEC of Rb-87 atoms. This is related to experiments on the quantum delta kicked rotor (QDKR) that have been performed with cold atoms. These experiments have observed dynamical localization [1] and quantum accelerator modes [2]. In our experiments we use an all optical BEC which is exposed to a standing wave generated by a YAG laser. Importantly, because we can control the motion of the standing wave, it is possible to create a variety of different atomic dynamics. By using BEC instead of cold atoms we take advantage of an initial well defined state and the inter-atomic interactions. [1] F. L. Moore, J. C. Robinson, C. Bharucha, P. E. Williams, and M. G. Raizen, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{73}, 2974 (1994) [2] M. K. Oberthaler, R. M. Godun, M. B. d'Arcy, G. S. Summy, and K. Burnett Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{83}, 4447 (1999).