Jul 17 – 22, 2022
Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto
America/Toronto timezone

Generating and detecting topological phases with higher Chern number

Jul 21, 2022, 5:00 PM
1h 30m
Hart House (Hart House)

Hart House

Hart House

7 Hart House Cir, Toronto, ON M5S 3H3
Poster presentation Degenerate gases, many-body physics, and quantum simulation Poster session

Description

Topological phases with broken time-reversal symmetry and Chern number |C|>=2 are of fundamental interest, but it remains unclear how to engineer the desired topological Hamiltonian within the paradigm of spin-orbit-coupled particles hopping only between nearest neighbours of a static lattice. We show that phases with higher Chern number arise when the spin-orbit coupling satisfies a combination of spin and spatial rotation symmetries. We leverage this result both to construct minimal two-band tight binding Hamiltonians that exhibit |C|=2,3 phases, and to show that the Chern number of one of the energy bands can be inferred from the particle spin polarization at the high-symmetry crystal momenta in the Brillouin zone. Using these insights, we provide a detailed experimental scheme for the specific realization of a time-reversal-breaking topological phase with |C|=2 for ultracold atomic gases on a triangular lattice subject to spin-orbit coupling. The Chern number can be directly measured using Zeeman spectroscopy; for fermions the spin amplitudes can be measured directly via time of flight, while for bosons this is preceded by a short Bloch oscillation. Our results provide a pathway to the realization and detection of novel topological phases with higher Chern number in ultracold atomic gases.

Presenter name Abhijeet Alase
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Primary authors

Abhijeet Alase (Institute for Quantum Science and Technology, University of Calgary) Dr David L. Feder (Institute for Quantum Science and Technology, University of Calgary)

Presentation materials

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