M. Glück, A. R. Kolovsky, H.J. Korsch

• The paper studies the dynamics of transitions between the levels of a Wannier-Stark ladder induced by a resonant periodic driving. The analysis of the problem is done in terms of resonance quasienergy states, which take into account the metastable character of the Wannier-Stark states. It is shown that the periodic driving creates from a localized Wannier-Stark state an extended Bloch-like state with a spatial length varying in time as ~ t^1/2. Such a state can find applications in the field of atomic optics because it generates a coherent pulsed atomic beam.