Probing electron Zitterbewegung in Topological Insulators

L. K. Shi, Kai Chang

Published 2011-09-22, updated 2014-10-14Version 5

Zitterbewegung is an inherent hallmark of the Dirac equation which arises from the superposition between the positive and negative energy part of the spinor states. This exotic quantum phenomenon is only observed very recently in traped ions and cold atom systems, but still a challenging task for electron systems. Here we present a general theory about the electron Zitterbewegung in a topological insulator in the presence of an in-plane electric field. We demonstrate theoretically that the topological edge states in topological insulators origin from electron Zitterbewegung and the quantum spin Hall effect and quantum anomalous Hall effect can be viewed as a manifestation of anomalous electron Zitterbewegung.