We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally the phenomenon of vibrational resonance in a periodic potential, using cold atoms in an optical lattice as a model system. A high-frequency (HF) drive, with frequency much larger than any characteristic
frequency of the system, is applied by phase-modulating one of the lattice beams. We show that the HF drive leads to the renormalization of the potential. We used transport measurements as a probe of the potential renormalization. The very same experiments also demonstrate that transport can be controlled by the HF drive via potential renormalization.
Motivated by recent work [D. Cubero et al., Phys. Rev. E 82, 041116 (2010)], we examine the mechanisms which determine current reversals in rocking ratchets as observed by varying the frequency of the drive. We found that a class of these current rev
ersals in the frequency domain are precisely determined by dissipation-induced symmetry breaking. Our experimental and theoretical work thus extends and generalizes the previously identified relationship between dynamical and symmetry-breaking mechanisms in the generation of current reversals.
We observe vacuum Rabi splitting in a lossy nearly confocal cavity indicating the strong coupling regime, despite a weak single-atom single-mode coupling. Strong collective interaction manifests itself in the typical $sqrt{N}$-dependence of the norma
l mode splitting on the number of atoms $N$. The $TEM_{00}$-mode coupling parameters are $(g,kappa,gamma)=2pitimes(0.12,0.8,2.6)$ MHz and up to $(1.33pm 0.08)times10^5$ cesium atoms were loaded into the mode volume.
