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arXiv:1804.02957 · Physical Review A

Bosonic topological excitations from the instability of a quadratic band crossing

Guang-Quan Luo, Andreas Hemmerich, Zhi-Fang Xu

Published Nov 15, 2018• 10 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the interaction-driven instability of a quadratic band crossing arising for ultracold bosonic atoms loaded into a two-dimensional optical lattice. We consider the case when the degenerate point becomes a local minimum of both crossing energy bands such that it can support a stable Bose--Einstein condensate. A repulsive contact interaction among the condensed bosons induces a spontaneously time-reversal-symmetry broken superfluid phase and a topological gap is opened in the excitation spectrum. We propose two concrete realizations of the desired quadratic band crossing in lattices with either fourfold or sixfold rotational symmetries via suitable tuning of the unit cell leading to reduced Brillouin zones and correspondingly folded bands. In either case, topologically protected edge excitations are found for a finite system.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.98.053617

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We investigate the interaction-driven instability of a quadratic band crossing arising for ultracold bosonic atoms loaded into a two-dimensional optical lattice. We consider the case when the degenerate point becomes a local minimum of both crossing energy bands such that it can support a stable Bose--Einstein condensate. A repulsive contact interaction among the condensed bosons induces a spontaneously time-reversal-symmetry broken superfluid phase and a topological gap is opened in the excitation spectrum. We propose two concrete realizations of the desired quadratic band crossing in lattices with either fourfold or sixfold rotational symmetries via suitable tuning of the unit cell leading to reduced Brillouin zones and correspondingly folded bands. In either case, topologically protected edge excitations are found for a finite system.
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Weyl points exist in a fascinating topological state of matter with linear band crossings analogous to magnetic monopoles. Tremendous efforts have been devoted to investigating fermionic topological materials with Weyl points in the single-particle band dispersion. It remains elusive for realizing interaction-induced Weyl points, especially for bosons. Motivated by recent experimental progress in ultracold atoms, we propose a scheme to create Weyl points for Bogoliubov excitations of a bosonic superfluid in a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice. The unique design of the lattice leads to interaction-induced time-reversal symmetry breaking for a ppp-orbital superfluid, which in turn induces Weyl Bogoliubov excitations. Analogous to Weyl semimetals of electronic systems, the superfluid also supports topologically protected edge modes due to the bulk-boundary correspondence.
Abstract This article provides a synopsis of our recent experimental work exploring Bose–Einstein condensation in metastable higher Bloch bands of optical lattices. Bipartite lattice geometries have allowed us to implement appropriate band structures, which meet three basic requirements: the existence of metastable excited states sufficiently protected from collisional band relaxation, a mechanism to excite the atoms initially prepared in the lowest band with moderate entropy increase, and the possibility of cross-dimensional tunneling dynamics, necessary to establish coherence along all lattice axes. A variety of bands can be selectively populated and a subsequent thermalization process leads to the formation of a condensate in the lowest energy state of the chosen band. As examples the 2nd, 4th and 7th bands in a bipartite square lattice are discussed. The geometry of the 2nd and 7th bands can be tuned such that two inequivalent energetically degenerate energy minima arise at the X ± -points at the edge of the 1st Brillouin zone. In this case even a small interaction energy is sufficient to lock the phase between the two condensation points such that a complex-valued chiral superfluid order parameter can emerge, which breaks time reversal symmetry. In the 4th band a condensate can be formed at the Γ-point in the center of the 1st Brillouin zone, which can be used to explore topologically protected band touching points. The new techniques to access orbital degrees of freedom in higher bands greatly extend the class of many-body scenarios that can be explored with bosons in optical lattices.
We investigate the stability of a quadratic band-crossing point (QBCP) in 2D fermionic systems. At the noninteracting level, we show that a QBCP exists and is topologically stable for a Berry flux +/-2pi if the point symmetry group has either fourfold or sixfold rotational symmetries. This putative topologically stable free-fermion QBCP is marginally unstable to arbitrarily weak short-range repulsive interactions. We consider both spinless and spin-1/2 fermions. Four possible ordered states result: a quantum anomalous Hall phase, a quantum spin Hall phase, a nematic phase, and a nematic-spin-nematic phase.
We show that Bose–Einstein condensates in optical lattices with broken time-reversal symmetry can support chiral edge modes originating from nontrivial bulk excitation band topology. To be specific, we analyze a Bose–Hubbard extension of the Haldane model, which can be realized with recently developed techniques of periodically modulating honeycomb optical lattices. The topological properties of Bloch bands known for the noninteracting case are shown to be smoothly carried over to Bogoliubov excitation bands for the interacting case. We show that the parameter ranges that display topological bands enlarge with increasing the Hubbard interaction or the particle density. In the presence of sharp boundaries, chiral edge modes appear in the gap between topological excitation bands. We demonstrate that by coherently transferring a portion of a condensate into an edge mode, a density wave is formed along the edge owing to an interference with the background condensate. This offers a unique method of detecting an edge mode through a macroscopic quantum phenomenon.
We investigate the stability of a quadratic band-crossing point (QBCP) in 2D fermionic systems. At the non-interacting level, we show that a QBCP exists and is topologically stable for a Berry flux {-+}2{pi}, if the point symmetry group has either fourfold or sixfold rotational symmetries. This putative topologically stable free-fermion QBCP is marginally unstable to arbitrarily weak shortrange repulsive interactions. We consider both spinless and spin-1/2 fermions. Four possible ordered states result: a quantum anomalous Hall phase, a quantum spin Hall phase, a nematic phase, and a nematic-spin-nematic phase.