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Complexity Digest 2001.29 - 12
http://comdig.unam.mx/index.php?id_issue=2001.29#2731
16-Jul-2001

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A Trick Shot In Quantum		Billiards, Science
 









Summary: When a cloud of atoms is cooled and
held in an optical trap and then allowed to cool again, the
trajectories of the atoms will depend on the geometry of the
confining walls imposed by light beams. Most trajectories will be
chaotic, but some geometries exist in which the scattering
processes satisfy momentum-selection rules that give rise to
stable trajectories. Steck et al. (p.
274; see the Perspective by Habib), using a system in which
the atoms are confined in an optical standing wave and using a
velocity-selection technique, show that for special regions of
momentum space, termed "islands of stability," the atoms can
tunnel between one stable momentum state and its symmetric
opposite. Time-slice measurements show that the atoms oscillate
between the two stable momentum states.

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