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arXiv:1611.00205 · New Journal of Physics

Topological invariant and cotranslational symmetry in strongly interacting multi-magnon systems

Xizhou Qin, Feng Mei, Yongguan Ke, Li Zhang, Chaohong Lee

Published Oct 23, 2017• 21 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

It is still an outstanding challenge to characterize and understand the topological features of strongly interacting states such as bound states in interacting quantum systems. Here, by introducing a cotranslational symmetry in an interacting multi-particle quantum system, we systematically develop a method to define a Chern invariant, which is a generalization of the well-known Thouless–Kohmoto–Nightingale–den Nijs invariant, for identifying strongly interacting topological states. As an example, we study the topological multi-magnon states in a generalized Heisenberg XXZ model, which can be realized by the currently available experiment techniques of cold atoms (Aidelsburger et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 , 185301; Miyake et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 , 185302). Through calculating the two-magnon excitation spectrum and the defined Chern number, we explore the emergence of topological edge bound states and give their topological phase diagram. We also analytically derive an effective single-particle Hofstadter superlattice model for a better understanding of the topological bound states. Our results not only provide a new approach to defining a topological invariant for interacting multi-particle systems, but also give insights into the characterization and understanding of strongly interacting topological states.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/aa9556

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It is still an outstanding challenge to characterize and understand the topological features of strongly interacting states such as bound states in interacting quantum systems. Here, by introducing a cotranslational symmetry in an interacting multi-particle quantum system, we systematically develop a method to define a Chern invariant, which is a generalization of the well-known Thouless–Kohmoto–Nightingale–den Nijs invariant, for identifying strongly interacting topological states. As an example, we study the topological multi-magnon states in a generalized Heisenberg XXZ model, which can be realized by the currently available experiment techniques of cold atoms (Aidelsburger et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 , 185301; Miyake et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 , 185302). Through calculating the two-magnon excitation spectrum and the defined Chern number, we explore the emergence of topological edge bound states and give their topological phase diagram. We also analytically derive an effective single-particle Hofstadter superlattice model for a better understanding of the topological bound states. Our results not only provide a new approach to defining a topological invariant for interacting multi-particle systems, but also give insights into the characterization and understanding of strongly interacting topological states.
It is still an outstanding challenge to characterize and understand the topological features of strongly correlated states such as bound-states in interacting multi-particle quantum systems. Recently, bound states of elementary spin waves (magnons) in quantum magnets have been experimentally observed in quantum Heisenberg chains comprising ultracold Bose atoms in optical lattices. Here, we explore an unprecedented topological state called topological magnon bound-state in the quantum Heisenberg chain under cotranslational symmetry. We find that the cotranslational symmetry allows us to formulate a direct topological invariant for the multi-particle quantum states, which can be used to characterize the topological features of multi-magnon excitations. We calculate energy spectra, density distributions, correlations and topological invariants of the two-magnon bound-states and show the existence of topological magnon bound-states. Our study not only opens a new prospect to pursue topological bound-states, but also gives insights into the characterization and understanding of strongly interacting topological states.
Strongly interacting topological states in multiparticle quantum systems pose great challenges to both theory and experiment. Recently, bound states of elementary spin waves (magnons) in quantum magnets have been experimentally observed in quantum Heisenberg chains comprising ultracold Bose atoms in optical lattices. Here, we explore a strongly interacting topological state called topological magnon bound state in the quantum Heisenberg chain under cotranslational symmetry. We find that the cotranslational symmetry is the key to the definition of a topological invariant for multiparticle quantum states, which enables us to characterize the topological features of multimagnon excitations. We calculate energy spectra, density distributions, correlations, and Chern numbers of the two-magnon bound states and show the existence of topological protected edge bound states. Our study not only opens a prospect to pursue topological magnon bound states, but also gives insights into the characterization and understanding of strongly interacting topological states.
Crystalline symmetries give rise to topological invariants that can distinguish quantum phases of matter. Understanding these in strongly interacting systems is an ongoing research direction requiring non-perturbative methods. Recent developments have demonstrated that even classic models, like the Harper-Hofstadter model of free fermions on a lattice in a magnetic field, yield a host of crystalline symmetry protected topological invariants. Here we review some of these developments, focusing mainly on how to characterize, classify, and detect invariants arising from lattice translation and rotation symmetries along with charge conservation in two-dimensional systems, including integer and fractional Chern insulators.
Understanding correlation effects in topological phases of matter is at the forefront of current research in condensed matter physics. Here we try to clarify some subtleties in studying topological behaviors of interacting Weyl semimetals. It is well known that there exist two topological invariants defined to identify their topological character. One is the many-body Chern number, which can be directly linked to the Hall conductivity and thus to the two-particle correlations. The other is the topological index constructed from the single-particle Green's functions. Because the information on Green's functions is achieved more easily than the many-body wave functions, usually only the topological index is employed in the literature. However, the approach based on the single-particle Green's function can break down in the strongly correlated phase. For illustration, an exactly solvable two-orbital model with momentum-local two-body interactions is discussed, in which both topological invariants can be calculated analytically. We find that the topological index calculated from the Green's function formalism can be nonzero even for a nontopological strongly correlated phase with a vanishing many-body Chern number. In addition, we stress that the physical surface states implied by nonzero many-body Chern numbers should be the edge modes of particle-hole collective excitations, rather than those of a quasiparticle nature derived from the Green's function formalism. Our observations thus demonstrate the limitation of the validity of the Green's function formalism in the investigations of interacting topological materials.
Topological phases have greatly improved our understanding of modern conception of phases of matter that go beyond the paradigm of symmetry breaking and are not described by local order parameters. Instead, characterization of topological phases requires the robust topological invariants, whereas measuring these global quantities presents an outstanding challenge for experiments, especially in interacting systems. Here we report the real-space observation of a symmetry-protected topological phase with interacting nuclear spins, and probe the interaction-induced transition between two topologically distinct phases, both of which are classified by many-body Chern numbers obtained from the dynamical response to the external magnetic fields. The resulting value of Chern number (Chˉ=1.958±0.070\bar{\mathcal{C}h} = 1.958 \pm 0.070Chˉ=1.958±0.070) demonstrates the robust ground state degeneracy, and also determines the number of nontrivial edge states. Our findings enable direct characterization of topological features of quantum many-body states through gradually decreasing the strength of the introduced external fields.
Beyond the well-known topological band theory for single-particle systems, it is a great challenge to characterize the topological nature of interacting multiparticle quantum systems. Here, we uncover the relation between topological invariants defined through the twisted boundary condition (TBC) and the center-of-mass (c.m.) momentum state in multiparticle systems. We find that the Berry phase defined through the TBC can be equivalently obtained from the multiparticle Wilson loop formulated by c.m. momentum states. As the Chern number can be written as the winding of the Berry phase, we consequently prove the equivalence of Chern numbers obtained via TBC and c.m. momentum state approaches. As a proof-of-principle example, we study topological properties of the Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper model. Our numerical results show that the TBC approach and c.m. approach are well consistent with each other for both the many-body case and the few-body case. Our work lays a concrete foundation and provides insights for exploring multiparticle topological states.