Robust quantization of particle transport, as in a Thouless pump, is a hallmark of topological quantum systems with externally controlled system parameters. Here we instead propose and analyze a Thouless pump, for fermions in a one-dimensional lattice, in which external control is not needed, because an additional dynamical degree of freedom allows the pump to work autonomously. The external control parameters are replaced by a quantum spin in a static magnetic field, so that Larmor precession of the spin performs the control cycle that induces topologically quantized transport of the fermions -- at least in some higher energy eigenstates of the combined system. In other states, the back-action of the fermions on the spin can distort the control cycle enough to disrupt the transport, but we find numerical evidence for a critical value of the magnetic field above which the autonomous pump works with topological robustness, suggesting that topological protection and autonomous operation together may permit robust "quantum motors".
Robust quantization of particle transport, as in a Thouless pump, is a hallmark of topological quantum systems with externally controlled system parameters. Here we instead propose and analyze a Thouless pump, for fermions in a one-dimensional lattice, in which external control is not needed, because an additional dynamical degree of freedom allows the pump to work autonomously. The external control parameters are replaced by a quantum spin in a static magnetic field, so that Larmor precession of the spin performs the control cycle that induces topologically quantized transport of the fermions -- at least in some higher energy eigenstates of the combined system. In other states, the back-action of the fermions on the spin can distort the control cycle enough to disrupt the transport, but we find numerical evidence for a critical value of the magnetic field above which the autonomous pump works with topological robustness, suggesting that topological protection and autonomous operation together may permit robust "quantum motors".
A topological “Thouless” pump represents the quantized motion of particles in response to a slow, cyclic modulation of external control parameters. The Thouless pump, like the quantum Hall effect, is of fundamental interest in physics, because it links physically measurable quantities, such as particle currents, to geometric properties of the experimental system, which can be robust against perturbations and, thus, technologically useful. So far, experiments probing the interplay between topology and interparticle interactions have remained relatively scarce. Here, we observe a Thouless-type charge pump in which the particle current and its directionality inherently rely on the presence of strong interactions. Experimentally, we utilize a two-component Fermi gas in a dynamical superlattice which does not exhibit a sliding motion and remains trivial in the single-particle regime. However, when tuning interparticle interactions from zero to positive values, the system undergoes a transition from being stationary to drifting in one direction, consistent with quantized pumping in the first cycle. Remarkably, the topology of the interacting pump trajectory cannot be adiabatically connected to a noninteracting limit, highlighted by the fact that only one atom is transferred per cycle. Our experiments suggest that Thouless charge pumps are promising platforms to gain insights into interaction-driven topological transitions and topological quantum matter. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Thouless pumping enables the transport of particles in a one-dimensional periodic potential if the potential is slowly and periodically modulated in time. The change in the position of particles after each modulation period is quantized and depends solely on the topology of the pump cycle, making it robust against perturbations. Here, we demonstrate that Thouless pumping also allows for the realization of topologically protected quantized changes of the distance between atoms if the atomic s -wave scattering length is properly modulated in time. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Abstract Geometric properties of wave functions can explain the appearance of topological invariants in many condensed-matter and quantum systems 1 . For example, topological invariants describe the plateaux observed in the quantized Hall effect and the pumped charge in its dynamic analogue—the Thouless pump 2–4 . However, the presence of interparticle interactions can affect the topology of a material, invalidating the idealized formulation in terms of Bloch waves. Despite pioneering experiments in different platforms 5–9 , the study of topological matter under variations in interparticle interactions has proven challenging 10 . Here we experimentally realize a topological Thouless pump with fully tuneable Hubbard interactions in an optical lattice and observe regimes with robust pumping, as well as an interaction-induced breakdown. We confirm the pump’s robustness against interactions that are smaller than the protecting gap for both repulsive and attractive interactions. Furthermore, we identify that bound pairs of fermions are responsible for quantized transport at strongly attractive interactions. However, for strong repulsive interactions, topological pumping breaks down, but we show how to reinstate it by modifying the pump trajectory. Our results will prove useful for further investigations of interacting topological matter 10 , including edge effects 11 and interaction-induced topological phases 12–15 .
Over thirty years ago, Thouless introduced the quantized particle transport that can occur in a one-dimensional quantum system under a cyclic adiabatic variation of periodic potentials without a bias voltage. This phenomenon is attributed to the formation of a dynamical Chern insulator on a parameter surface formed by quasimomentum and time. Recently, three-dimensional topological gapless phenomena have sparked tremendous attention in various fields. Here, we demonstrate that dynamical Weyl points and dynamical 4D Weyl nodal rings protected by the first Chern number emerge in a two-dimensional and three-dimensional system, respectively. We find that the topological quantum pump occurs in these systems but the amount of pumped particles is not quantized and can be tuned continuously by controlling experimental parameters. Finally, we propose an experimental scheme to realize the dynamical Weyl points and 4D Weyl nodal rings and their corresponding topological pump in cold atomic gases.
A Thouless pump describes a system in which a quantized amount of charge is transported by one lattice spacing per cycle when the parameters of a Hamiltonian are varied slowly and periodically. In the standard case, this quantization requires the system to remain in its ground state with vanishing thermodynamic entropy throughout the pumping process. Here, we introduce a class of Mott-Thouless pumps, which operate in highly entropic, spin-incoherent Mott states. We show analytically that these states exhibit exponentially protected quantized transport despite their extensive entropy, because the pumped charge resides in a gapped sector that remains dynamically decoupled from the hot spin degrees of freedom. By contrast, motivated by a recent experimental realization, we identify other classes of Mott-Thouless pumps that lack this protection. In these systems, spin excitations can efficiently generate charge excitations, leading to a rapid breakdown of quantized transport. Our analytical results are supported by numerically exact real-time simulations of finite systems.
A topological charge pump is a one-dimensional, dynamical analogue of a quantum Hall system that is particularly well suited for studying topology, both theoretically and experimentally, since no synthetic gauge fields are required and efficient numerical algorithms exist to treat one-dimensional interacting systems in the form of matrix-product state methods. Instead of a robustly quantized Hall conductivity, a topological charge pump pumps a quantized amount of charge in each cycle of a parameter modulation that is given by the same topological invariant as in the quantum Hall effect. The goal of this thesis is to understand the stability of quantized transport in various contexts that are relevant in ultracold quantum gases, such as disordered systems, quantum systems where energy can be exchanged with a bath and in the presence of genuine many-body interactions. The results are presented as part of four scientific papers. In the first paper, we characterize the breakdown of quantized pumping as a function of disorder strength by employing various instantaneous and time-dependent measures. We argue that in disorder averages, the full energy gap distributions should be considered. In the second paper, we study the breakdown of quantized pumping due to electron-phonon coupling and find a resonant breakdown when the pump frequency equals the phonon frequency. The third paper introduces the possibility of a splitting of critical points in a Rice-Mele Hubbard model, which allows for interaction-induced pumping. The final paper presents experimental data of an ultracold-atom setup studying this interaction-induced pumping, as well as numerical calculations detailing the breakdown due to the crossing of a spin-gapless line.