Quasiperiodic Optical Lattices

Abstract

We study the kinetic temperature and the localization of cesium atoms in a three dimensional quasiperiodic optical potential created by the interference of five or six laser beams. Bragg scattering experiments show evidence of a quasiperiodic order for the atomic density. Temperature measurements are consistent with the topological invariance of the optical potential under phase variations of the laser beams. Numerical semiclassical Monte Carlo simulations show results in reasonable agreement with the experimental observations.