Atomic Zitterbewegung in Abelian vector gauge potentials

We propose a scheme to realize Zitterbewegung (ZB) with cold atoms in an Abelian vector potential. Two dark states can be created by interacting alkali-metal atoms with three coaxial Gaussian beams. Atoms moving in the subspace spanned by the two dark states feel a vector gauge potential that is nonvanishing only along the laser axis. We show that cold atoms in this Abelian vector potential undergo ZB with a large amplitude detectable in experiment.