Dynamics stabilization and transport coherency in a rocking ratchet for cold atoms

Abstract

Cold atoms in optical lattices have emerged as an ideal system to investigate the ratchet effect, as demonstrated by several recent experiments. In this work we analyze theoretically two aspects of ac-driven transport in cold-atom ratchets. We first address the issue of whether, and to what extent, an ac-driven ratchet for cold atoms can operate as a motor. We thus study theoretically a dissipative motor for cold atoms, as obtained by adding a load to a 1D nonadiabatically driven rocking ratchet. We demonstrate that a current can be generated also in the presence of a load, e.g., the ratchet device can operate as a motor. Correspondingly, we determine the stall force for the motor, which characterizes the range of loads over which the device can operate as a motor, and the differential mobility, which characterizes the response to a change in the magnitude of the load. Second, we compare our results for the transport in an ac-driven ratchet device with the transport in a dc-driven system. We observe a peculiar phenomenon: the double-harmonic ac force stabilizes the dynamics, allowing the generation of uniform directed motion over a range of momentum much larger than what is possible with a dc bias. We explain such a stabilization of the dynamics by observing that a nonadiabatic ac drive broadens the effective cooling momentum range and forces the atom trajectories to cover such a region. Thus the system can dissipate energy and maintain a steady-state energy balance. Our results show that in the case of a finite-range velocity-dependent friction, a ratchet device may offer the possibility of controlling the particle motion over a broader range of momentum with respect to a purely biased system, although this is at the cost of a reduced coherency.