Bloch oscillations of cold atoms in two-dimensional optical lattices

Bloch oscillations of cold atoms in two-dimensional optical lattices are studied. The cases of separable and nonseparable potentials are compared by simulating the wave-packet dynamics. For these two classes of optical potential, the Bloch oscillations were found to be qualitatively the same in the case of a weak static field but fundamentally different in the case of a strong field. In addition, the dynamics of the atoms in a double-period potential (which can easily be realized in two dimensions) is studied for the regime of a weak static field.