Observing Zitterbewegung in Ultracold Atoms

Abstract

We propose an optical lattice scheme which would permit the experimental observation of Zitterbewegung (ZB) with ultracold, neutral atoms. A four-level "tripod" variant of the usual setup for stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) has been proposed for generating non-Abelian gauge fields [1]. Dirac-like Hamiltonians, which exhibit ZB, are simple examples of such non-Abelian gauge fields; we show how a variety of them can arise, and how ZB can be observed, in a tripod system. We predict that the ZB should occur at experimentally accessible frequencies and amplitudes.

4 pages, 5 figures. Added references

References in corpus (4)

• Non-Abelian gauge potentials for ultra-cold atoms with degenerate dark states
• Zitterbewegung of electronic wave packets in semiconductor nanostructures
• Non-equilibrium spin dynamics in a trapped Fermi gas with effective spin-orbit interaction
• Spin-orbit coupling and Berry phase with ultracold atoms in 2D optical lattices

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Double and negative reflection of cold atoms in non-Abelian gauge potentials