Perfect Zitterbewegung oscillations in the Kitaev chain system

Abstract

Superconducting systems such as those modeled by the Kitaev Hamiltonian are found to exhibit the Zitterbewegung (ZB) oscillations. Remarkably, the dispersion relation in one-dimensional Kitaev systems allows for wavepackets of arbitrary size undergoing non-decaying ZB without any distortion, with the typical ZB amplitude being one lattice site. To motivate possible experimental interest in this dynamical aspect of superconducting systems, we further show that certain on-resonance modulation of the Hamiltonian parameter can be exploited to convert ZB oscillations to net drifting of particle's wavepacket and hole's wavepacket along opposite directions, leading to long-distance particle-hole separation.