Chaotic Quantum Decay in Driven Biased Optical Lattices
S Mossmann, Schumann, C, Korsch, H J
Abstract
Quantum decay in an ac driven biased periodic potential modeling cold atoms in optical lattices is studied for a symmetry broken driving. For the case of fully chaotic classical dynamics the classical exponential decay is quantum mechanically suppressed for a driving frequency omega in resonance with the Bloch frequency omega_B, q omega = r omega_B with integers q and r. Asymptotically an algebraic decay ~ t^{-gamma} is observed. For r=1 the exponent gamma agrees with q as predicted by non-Hermitian random matrix theory for q decay channels. The time dependence of the survival probability can be well described by random matrix theory. The frequency-dependence of the survival probability shows pronounced resonance peaks with sub-Fourier character.