Bloch oscillations and mean-field effects of Bose-Einstein condensates in 1D optical lattices

The coherent acceleration and Bloch oscillations of Bose-Einstein condensates adiabatically loaded into a 1D optical lattice were studied. Through Landau-Zener tunneling out of the lowest Bloch band, the dependence of the effective potential on the interaction parameter C was assessed. The results show good qualitative agreement with the available theories and extend the experimental work on ultracold atoms in optical lattices into the domain of Bose-Einstein condensates.