Suppression of Faraday waves in a Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of an optical lattice

We study the formation of Faraday waves in an elongated Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of a one-dimensional optical lattice. The waves are parametrically excited by modulating the radial confinement of the condensate close to a transverse breathing mode of the system. For very shallow optical lattices, phonons with a well-defined wave vector propagate along the condensate, as in the absence of the lattice, and we observe the formation of a Faraday pattern. We find that by increasing the potential depth the local sound velocity decreases, and when it equals the condensate local phase velocity, the condensate develops an incoherent superposition of several modes and the parametric excitation of Faraday waves is suppressed.