Coherent control in the classical limit: Symmetry breaking in an optical lattice

By Michael Spanner, Ignacio Franco, and Paul Brumer

The quantum-to-classical transition of a symmetry-breaking coherent control scenario is computationally demonstrated in an optical lattice arrangement. Control is shown to survive in the classical limit and, for small effective ℏ, to be comparable in magnitude to quantum control. Moderate decoherence is seen to eliminate structure from the momentum space distribution, but not to cause loss of control. The proposed scenario is designed so as to be demonstrable experimentally in a moving or shaken one-dimensional optical lattice.

**Groupmeeting by Chao Zhuang**