Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 73: Photonics II

Q 73.5: Talk

Friday, March 27, 2015, 15:30–15:45, B/gHS

Zitterbewegung in metamaterial simulations of the Dirac equation — •Sven Ahrens and Shi-Yao Zhu — Beijing Computational Science Research Center, No. 3 He-Qing Road, Hai-Dian District, Beijing, 100084

Zitterbewegung is an oscillatory, non-classical motion of wave packets in Dirac theory, caused by interference of positive and negative energy eigenstates of the free, one-particle Dirac equation. Recently it has been shown, that the propagation of electro-magnetic waves in certain metamaterials can be associated with an effective Dirac equation and that even topological excitations can be found in such wave guides [1].

In our theory, we extend the description of the effective Dirac equation from frequency space into the time domain by using a unitary time evolution. We demonstrate, that Zitterbewegung can occur in metamaterial simulations of the effective Dirac equation.

W. Tan, Y. Sun, H. Chen, SQ. Shen, Sci. Rep. 4:3842 (2014)