  It is demonstrated that the oscillations in the width of the momentum
distribution of atoms moving in a phase-modulated standing light field, as a
function of the modulation amplitude, are correlated with the variation of the
chaotic layer width in energy of an underlying effective pendulum. The maximum
effect of dynamical localization and the nearly perfect delocalization are
associated with the maxima and minima, respectively, of the chaotic layer
width. It is also demonstrated that kinetic energy is conserved as an almost
adiabatic invariant at the minima of the chaotic layer width, and that the
system is accurately described by delta-kicked rotors at the zeros of the
Bessel functions J_0 and J_1. Numerical calculations of kinetic energy and
Lyapunov exponents confirm all the theoretical predictions.
