Quasi-relativistic behavior of cold atoms in light fields

Abstract

We study the influence of three laser beams on the center of mass motion of cold atoms with internal energy levels in a tripod configuration. We show that similar to electrons in graphene the atomic motion can be equivalent to the dynamics of ultra-relativistic two-component Dirac fermions. We propose and analyze an experimental setup for observing such a quasi-relativistic motion of ultracold atoms. We demonstrate that the atoms can experience negative refraction and focussing by Veselago-type lenses. We also show how the chiral nature of the atomic motion manifests itself as an oscillation of the atomic internal state population which depends strongly on the direction of the center of mass motion. For certain directions an atom remains in its initial state, whereas for other directions the populations undergo oscillations between a pair of internal states.

4 pages, updated version, Phys. Rev. A 77, (R)011802 (2008)

References in corpus (6)

• Chiral tunneling and the Klein paradox in graphene
• Room-Temperature Quantum Hall Effect in Graphene
• Veselago Lens for Electrons: Focusing and Caustics in Graphene p-n Junctions
• Non-Abelian gauge potentials for ultra-cold atoms with degenerate dark states
• Simulation and detection of Dirac fermions with cold atoms in an optical lattice
• Chiral Gauge Theory for Graphene

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Observing Zitterbewegung in Ultracold Atoms
• Non-Abelian optical lattices: Anomalous quantum Hall effect and Dirac Fermions
• Atomic Zitterbewegung
• Delocalization of relativistic Dirac particles in disordered one-dimensional systems and its implementation with cold atoms
• Double and negative reflection of cold atoms in non-Abelian gauge potentials
• Spin Field Effect Transistors with Ultracold Atoms
• Landau levels of cold atoms in non-Abelian gauge fields