We study the dynamics of the many-body atomic kicked rotor with interactions at the mean-field level, governed by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We show that dynamical localization is destroyed by the interaction and replaced by a subdiffusive behavior. In contrast to results previously obtained from a simplified version of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, the subdiffusive exponent does not appear to be universal. By studying the phase of the mean-field wave function, we propose an alternative approximation that describes correctly the dynamics at experimentally relevant times close to the start of subdiffusion, while preserving the reduced computational cost of the former approximation.

• Received 24 January 2020
• Accepted 1 April 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.101.043624