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arXiv:2007.15886 · Physical Review A

Multiorder topological superfluid phase transitions in a two-dimensional optical superlattice

Yu‐Biao Wu, Guang‐Can Guo, Zhen Zheng, Xu‐Bo Zou

Published Jul 7, 2021• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Higher-order topological superfluids have gapped bulk and symmetry-protected Majorana zero modes with various localizations. Motivated by recent advances, we present a proposal for synthesizing multiorder topological superfluids that support various Majorana zero modes in ultracold atomic gases. For this purpose, we use the two-dimensional optical superlattice that introduces a spatial modulation to the spin-orbit coupling in one direction, providing an extra degree of freedom for the emergent higher-order topological state. We find the topologically trivial superfluids, first-order and second-order topological superfluids, as well as different topological phase transitions among them with respect to the experimentally tunable parameters. Besides the conventional transition characterized by the Chern number associated with the bulk gap closing and reopening, we find the system can support the topological superfluids with Majorana corner modes, but the topological phase transition undergoes no gap-closing of bulk bands. Instead, the transition is refined by the quadrupole moment and signaled out by the gap-closing of edge states. The proposal is based on the $s$-wave interaction and is valid using existing experimental techniques, which unifies multiorder topological phase transitions in a simple but realistic system.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.104.013306

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Higher-order topological superfluids have gapped bulk and symmetry-protected Majorana zero modes with various localizations. Motivated by recent advances, we present a proposal for synthesizing multiorder topological superfluids that support various Majorana zero modes in ultracold atomic gases. For this purpose, we use the two-dimensional optical superlattice that introduces a spatial modulation to the spin-orbit coupling in one direction, providing an extra degree of freedom for the emergent higher-order topological state. We find the topologically trivial superfluids, first-order and second-order topological superfluids, as well as different topological phase transitions among them with respect to the experimentally tunable parameters. Besides the conventional transition characterized by the Chern number associated with the bulk gap closing and reopening, we find the system can support the topological superfluids with Majorana corner modes, but the topological phase transition undergoes no gap-closing of bulk bands. Instead, the transition is refined by the quadrupole moment and signaled out by the gap-closing of edge states. The proposal is based on the sss-wave interaction and is valid using existing experimental techniques, which unifies multiorder topological phase transitions in a simple but realistic system.
We present an experimental feasible proposal for synthesizing second-order topological superfluids that support Majorana corner modes in spin-orbit coupled Fermi gases. For this purpose, we consider the staggered spin-orbit coupling introduced in one direction. This results in a system consisted of two sublattices, providing extra degree of freedom for the emergent higher-order topological state. We find the topological trivial superfluids, first-order topological superfluids and boundary-obstructed second-order topological superfluids, as well as different topological phase transitions among them with respect to the the experimental tunable parameters. At the weak interaction regime, the phase transition is characterized by the Chern number accompanied by the bulk gap closing and reopening. However, at the strong interaction regime, we find the system can support the boundary-obstructed topological superfluids with Majorana corner modes, but topological phase transition dose not undergo the gap-closing of bulk bands. Instead the transition is refined by the quadrupole moment and signaled out by the gap-closing of edge-state. The proposal is simply based on the sss-wave interaction and readily feasible via existing experimental techniques, which suggests new possibilities in interacting spin-orbit coupled systems by unifying both first- and higher-order topological superfluids in a simple but realistic microscopic model.
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The experimental realizations of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in cold atom gases put topological superfluids (TSs) under the spotlight. The topological protection of suggested superfluid models comes from the local antiunitary symmetries of ten Altland-Zirnbauer symmetry classes. In this paper we theoretically study a two-dimensional BDI model describing spin-orbit-coupled bilayer fermionic gases with sss-wave interaction to realize mirror-symmetry- (nonlocal and unitary) protected gapped TS, beyond the paradigms suggested before. This gapped phase not only shows linearly dispersive Majorana zero modes on mirror invariant one-dimensional boundaries, but also shows Majorana corner states to realize the second-order TS (TS2) with sss-wave pairing, which is explicitly different from the nonconventional pairings in the suggested systems to realize TS2. Generally, engineering the single-particle band structures should be easier than directly engineering the complicated pairings. Considering the tremendous progress in manipulating cold atom systems, our work provides a possible route (by engineering the single-particle physics, such as SOC) to realize mirror-symmetry-protected gapped TS and TS2 in cold fermionic systems in the future.
Large Chern-number topological phase is always an important topic in modern physics. Here we investigate the topological superfluids in a coupled-layer system, in which transitions between different topological superfluids can be realized by controlling the binding energy, interlayer tunneling, and layer asymmetry, etc. These topological transitions are characterized by energy gap closing and reopening at the critical points at zero momentum, where the Chern number and sign of Pfaffian undergo a discontinuous change. Topological protected edge modes at the boundaries are ensured by the bulk-edge correspondence. In a trapped potential the edge modes are spatially localized at the interfaces between distinct topological superfluids, where the number of edge modes is equal to the Chern-number difference between the left and right superfluids. These topological transitions can be detected by spin texture at or near zero momentum, which changes discretely across the critical points due to band inversion. The model can be generalized to a multilayer system in which the Chern number can be equal to any positive integer. These large Chern-number topological superfluids provide fertile grounds for exploring exotic quantum matters in the context of ultracold atoms.
We discuss topological phase transitions in ultracold Fermi superfluids induced by interactions and artificial spin-orbit fields. We construct the phase diagram for population-imbalanced systems at zero and finite temperatures, and analyze spectroscopic and thermodynamic properties to characterize various phase transitions. For balanced systems, the evolution from Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer to Bose-Einstein-condensate superfluids in the presence of spin-orbit effects is only a crossover as the system remains fully gapped, even though a triplet component of the order parameter emerges in the helicity basis. However, for imbalanced populations, spin-orbit fields induce a triplet component for the order parameter in the helicity basis, and may produce nodes in the quasiparticle excitation spectrum leading to bulk topological phase transitions of the Lifshitz type. Additionally a fully gapped phase exists, where a crossover from indirect to direct gap occurs, but a topological transition to a gapped phase possessing Majorana fermion edge states does not occur.
Recent advanced experimental implementations of optical lattices with highly tunable geometry open up new regimes for exploring quantum many-body states of matter that had not been accessible previously. Here we report that a topological fermionic superfluid with higher Chern number emerges spontaneously from sss-wave spin-singlet pairing in an orbital optical lattice when its geometry is tuned to explicitly break reflection symmetry. Qualitatively distinct from the conventional scheme that relies on higher partial-wave pairing, the crucial ingredient of our model is topology originating from mixing higher Wannier orbitals. It leads to unexpected changes in the topological band structure at the single-particle level, i.e., the bands are transformed from possessing two flux-$\ensuremath{\pi}$ Dirac points into a single quadratic touching point with flux $2\ensuremath{\pi}$. Based on such engineered single-particle bands, spin-singlet pairing of ultracold fermions arising from standard sss-wave attractive interaction is found to induce higher Chern number (Chern number of 2) and topologically protected chiral edge modes, all occurring at a higher critical temperatures in relative scales, potentially circumventing one of the major obstacle for its realization in ultracold gases.