When atoms move in a standing wave created by two counterpropagating laser beams, they experience a periodic potential. This potential arises because the electric field in the standing wave induces an electric dipole in the atoms, which in turn seek out the most intense regions of electric field. Atoms in optical lattice potentials can simulate a variety of condensed matter phenomena including,...

In the lecture notes on waves, we have shown that the waves on a plucked guitar string are transverse standing waves consisting of a linear superposition (i.e. sum) of harmonics of the fundamental (first harmonic) with the fundamental itself. A first-order mathematical description of the shape of the overall waveform of the transverse standing wave on a plucked guitar string is a triangle, or s...

Abstract This paper describes a standing-wave interferometer with two laser sources of different wavelengths, diametrically opposed and emitting towards each other. The resulting standing wave has an intensity profile which is moving constant velocity, directly detected inside the beam by thin transparent photo sensors. first sensor at fixed position, serving as phase reference for second one m...

This paper is concerned with the existence and qualitative property of standing wave solutions ψ(t, x) = e−iEt/h̄v(x) for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation h̄ ∂ψ ∂t + h̄2 2 ψ − V (x)ψ + |ψ |p−1ψ = 0 with E being a critical frequency in the sense that minRN V (x) = E. We show that there exists a standing wave which is trapped in a neighbourhood of isolated minimum points of V and whose amplitude g...