The role of quasi-momentum in the resonant dynamics of the atom-optics kicked rotor

We examine the effect of the initial atomic momentum distribution on the dynamics of the atom-optical realization of the quantum kicked rotor. The atoms are kicked by a pulsed optical lattice, the periodicity of which implies that quasi-momentum is conserved in the transport problem. We study and compare experimentally and theoretically two resonant limits of the kicked rotor: in the vicinity of the quantum resonances and in the semiclassical limit of the vanishing kicking period. It is found that for the same experimental distribution of quasi-momenta, significant deviations from the kicked rotor model are induced close to quantum resonance, while close to the classical resonance (i.e. for a small kicking period) the effect of the quasi-momentum vanishes.