  The Zitterbewegung effect in spin-orbit coupled spin-1 cold atoms is
investigated in the presence of the Zeeman field and a harmonic trap. It is
shown that the Zeeman field and the harmonic trap have significant effect on
the Zitterbewegung oscillatory behaviors. The external Zeeman field could
suppress or enhance the Zitterbewegung amplitude and change the frequencies of
oscillation. A much slowly damping Zitterbewegung oscillation can be achieved
by adjusting both the linear and quadratic Zeeman field. Multi-frequency
Zitterbewegung oscillation can be induced by the applied Zeeman field. In the
presence of the harmonic trap, the subpackets corresponding to different
eigenenergies would always keep coherent, resulting in the persistent
Zitterbewegung oscillations. The Zitterbewegung oscillation would display very
complicated and irregular oscillation characteristics due to the coexistence of
different frequencies of the Zitterbewegung oscillation. Numerical results show
that, the Zitterbewegung effect is robust even in the presence of interaction
between atoms.
