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.