Excitations of Bose-Einstein condensates in a one-dimensional periodic potential

We report on the experimental investigation of the response of a three-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in the presence of a one-dimensional (1D) optical lattice. By means of Bragg spectroscopy we probe the band structure of the excitation spectrum in the presence of the periodic potential. We selectively induce elementary excitations of the BEC choosing the transferred momentum and we observe different resonances in the energy transfer, corresponding to the transitions to different bands. The frequency, the width, and the strength of these resonances are investigated as functions of the amplitude of the 1D optical lattice.