Dynamics of Weyl quasiparticles emerged in an optical lattice

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of the Weyl quasiparticles emerged in an optical lattice where the topological Weyl semimental and trivial band insulator phases can be adjusted with the on-site energy. The evolution of the density distribution is demonstrated to have an anomalous velocity in Weyl semimental but a steady Zitterbewegung effect in the band insulator. Our analysis demonstrates that the topological Chern number and the chirality of the system can be directly determined from the positions of the atomic center-of-mass. Furthermore, the amplitude and the period of the relativistic Zitterbewegung oscillations are shown to be observable with the time-of-flight experiments.