  We analyze the existence and stability of spatially extended (Bloch-type) and
localized states of a Bose-Einstein condensate loaded into an optical lattice.
In the framework of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with a periodic potential, we
study the band-gap structure of the matter-wave spectrum in both the linear and
nonlinear regimes. We demonstrate the existence of families of spatially
localized matter-wave gap solitons, and analyze their stability in different
band gaps, for both repulsive and attractive atomic interactions.
