Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 153002 (2008) [4 pages]Observing Zitterbewegung with Ultracold AtomsReceived 21 December 2007; published 16 April 2008 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 setup for stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) has previously been proposed for generating non-Abelian gauge fields. 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. URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.153002
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.153002
PACS:
37.10.Vz, 37.10.Jk, 71.70.Ej
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