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arXiv:1706.01888 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Infinite family of three-dimensional Floquet topological paramagnets

Andrew C. Potter, Ashvin Vishwanath, Lukasz Fidkowski

Published Jun 6, 2018• 15 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In thermal equilibrium, the interplay of symmetry and topology leads to a handful of topological insulating phases of matter with robust properties governed by topological invariants. This work investigates the nonequilibrium dynamics of three-dimensional systems of bosons, spins, or qubits, subject to time-periodic driving, and theoretically discovers an infinite family of new dynamical topological insulating phases that would not be possible in thermal equilibrium settings. These phases, called ``Floquet topological paramagnets'', display anomalous surface dynamics, including magnetic domain walls that transport unidirectionally precisely quantized packets of quantum information per driving period, and new types of dynamically enriched topological orders.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.97.245106

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In thermal equilibrium, the interplay of symmetry and topology leads to a handful of topological insulating phases of matter with robust properties governed by topological invariants. This work investigates the nonequilibrium dynamics of three-dimensional systems of bosons, spins, or qubits, subject to time-periodic driving, and theoretically discovers an infinite family of new dynamical topological insulating phases that would not be possible in thermal equilibrium settings. These phases, called ``Floquet topological paramagnets'', display anomalous surface dynamics, including magnetic domain walls that transport unidirectionally precisely quantized packets of quantum information per driving period, and new types of dynamically enriched topological orders.
Time-periodic driving enables new nonequilibrium quantum phases of matter with topologically protected and quantum coherent motion that would be forbidden in thermal equilibrium. This work uncovers two new classes of driven topological phases in driven two-dimensional spin systems: i) Floquet symmetry protected topological phases, which are driven and interacting analogs of topological insulators whose edge states are protected against disorder and localization; and ii) Floquet enriched topological orders, in which time-dependent driving ``breaks'' the spins into anyonic particles with fractional statistics and oscillating topological charge. The physics of these phases is explored by constructing toy models that can be explicitly solved despite the presence of strong interactions.
The manifestations of topology are ubiquitous in condensed matter physics. One of the most striking examples is the integer quantum Hall effect, which served as a theoretical basis for developing many classes of new materials in the last years such as topological insulators. It has been realized that topology can manifest itself also in time-dependent quantum systems. The question that we try to address in this thesis is how much of these topological structures can be harnessed in the realistic dynamics of a periodically driven closed quantum system. We investigate two kinds of topological periodically driven systems Thouless pumping and Floquet Chern insulators. Our analysis shows that the nonequilibrium occupations of the eigenvalues of the Floquet Hamiltonian, the so called quasienergies, play a crucial role. In the case of Thouless pumping we analysed the pumped charge averaged over many cycles and discovered that the corrections to perfect quantization of the pumped charge are actually quadratic in the frequency of the driving for a suddenly switched-on driving. In the case of Floquet Chern insulators, we studied fermions on the honeycomb lattice subjected to a circularly polarised field. We found that while the quasienergy bulk states can be populated in a controlled way, edge states get unavoidable excitations due to exponentially small gaps preventing adiabaticity. These defects reflect in nonequilibrium currents flowing at the edges, that can be manipulated by tailoring the parameters of the periodic driving. Nevertheless, the nonequilibrium state undergoes a generalized form of topological transition, thanks to the controlled population of bulk states. We describe it with a generalized version of the Chern marker of Bianco and Resta
The topological characterization of nonequilibrium topological matter is highly nontrivial because familiar approaches designed for equilibrium topological phases may not apply. In the presence of crystal symmetry, Floquet topological insulator states cannot be easily distinguished from normal insulators by a set of symmetry eigenvalues at high-symmetry points in the Brillouin zone. This work advocates a physically motivated, easy-to-implement approach to enhance the symmetry analysis to distinguish between a variety of Floquet topological phases. Using a two-dimensional inversion-symmetric periodically driven system as an example, we show that the symmetry eigenvalues for anomalous Floquet topological states, of both first order and second order, are the same as for normal atomic insulators. However, the topological states can be distinguished from one another and from normal insulators by inspecting the occurrence of stable dynamical symmetry inversion points in their microscopic dynamics. The analysis points to a position-space picture for understanding how topological boundary states can coexist with localized bulk states in anomalous Floquet topological phases.
Phases of matter are traditionally seen as families of static systems exhibiting the same long-distance and low-energy correlations. In this work, the authors propose and classify a new family of phases of matter. They are novel insofar as they are intrinsically driven and out of equilibrium --- they can only be realized in systems with time-dependent Hamiltonians. The phases we consider arise in 1D periodically driven systems, in the presence of strong disorder and interactions, and are similar to but qualitatively distinct from the symmetry-protected topological phases now well known in the equilibrium setting. In a companion paper, the authors examine similar intrinsically driven families of states with long-range order, and an order parameter that oscillates at a frequency that is robustly an integer multiple of the underlying drive frequency.
We review methods for using time-periodic fields (e.g., laser or microwave fields) to induce non-equilibrium topological phenomena in quantum many-body systems. We discuss how such fields can be used to change the topological properties of the single particle spectrum, and key experimental demonstrations in solid state, cold atomic, and photonic systems. The single particle Floquet band structure provides a stage on which the system's dynamics play out; the crucial question is then how to obtain robust topological behaviour in the many-particle setting. In the regime of mesoscopic transport, we discuss manifestations of topological edge states induced in the Floquet spectrum. Outside the context of mesoscopic transport, the main challenge of inducing stable topological phases in many-body Floquet systems is their tendency to absorb energy from the drive and thereby to heat up. We discuss three routes to overcoming this challenge: long-lived transient dynamics and prethermalization, disorder-induced many-body localization, and engineered couplings to external baths. We discuss the types of phenomena that can be explored in each of these regimes, and their experimental realizations.
Abstract Quantum many-body systems away from equilibrium host a rich variety of exotic phenomena that are forbidden by equilibrium thermodynamics. A prominent example is that of discrete time crystals 1–8 , in which time-translational symmetry is spontaneously broken in periodically driven systems. Pioneering experiments have observed signatures of time crystalline phases with trapped ions 9,10 , solid-state spin systems 11–15 , ultracold atoms 16,17 and superconducting qubits 18–20 . Here we report the observation of a distinct type of non-equilibrium state of matter, Floquet symmetry-protected topological phases, which are implemented through digital quantum simulation with an array of programmable superconducting qubits. We observe robust long-lived temporal correlations and subharmonic temporal response for the edge spins over up to 40 driving cycles using a circuit of depth exceeding 240 and acting on 26 qubits. We demonstrate that the subharmonic response is independent of the initial state, and experimentally map out a phase boundary between the Floquet symmetry-protected topological and thermal phases. Our results establish a versatile digital simulation approach to exploring exotic non-equilibrium phases of matter with current noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors 21 .