Anisotropic 2D Diffusive Expansion of Ultracold Atoms in a Disordered Potential

Year: 2010

Authors: Robert-de-Saint-Vincent M., Brantut J.P., Allard B., Plisson T., Pezzè L., Sanchez-Palencia L., Aspect A., Bourdel T., Bouyer P.

Autors Affiliation: Univ Paris Sud, CNRS, Lab Charles Fabry Inst Opt, F-91127 Palaiseau, France.

Abstract: We study the horizontal expansion of vertically confined ultracold atoms in the presence of disorder. Vertical confinement allows us to realize a situation with a few coupled harmonic oscillator quantum states. The disordered potential is created by an optical speckle at an angle of 30 degrees with respect to the horizontal plane, resulting in an effective anisotropy of the correlation lengths of a factor of 2 in that plane. We observe diffusion leading to non-Gaussian density profiles. Diffusion coefficients, extracted from the experimental results, show anisotropy and strong energy dependence, in agreement with numerical calculations.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Volume: 104 (22)      Pages from: 220602-1  to: 220602-4

More Information: We thank F. Moron and A. Villing for technical assistance, M. Besbes and GMPCS high performance computing facilities of the LUMAT federation for numerical support. This research was supported by CNRS, CNES as part of the ICE project, Direction Generale de l’ Armement, ANR-08-blan-0016-01, IXSEA, EuroQuasar program of the EU. LCFIO is member of IFRAF.
KeyWords: Metal-insulator-transition; Anderson Localization; Matter-waves; Dimensions; Speckle; Percolation; Transport; Absence
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.220602

Citations: 51
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