We show how to define a dynamical topological invariant for one-dimensional two-band topological systems after a quantum quench. By analyzing general two-band models of topological insulators, we demonstrate that the reduced momentum-time manifold can be viewed as a series of submanifolds
S2, and thus we are able to define a dynamical topological invariant on each of the spheres. We also unveil the intrinsic relation between the dynamical topological invariant and the difference in the topological invariant of the initial and final static Hamiltonian. By considering some concrete examples, we illustrate the calculation of the dynamical topological invariant and its geometrical meaning explicitly.
We investigate the dynamics of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model with boundary dissipations described by Lindblad master equations and unravel distinct dynamical features in the topologically different phases of the underlying Hamiltonian. By examining the long-time damping dynamics, we uncover a dynamical duality phenomenon between the weak and strong dissipation region, which exists only in the topologically non-trivial phase, linked to the structure of the Liouvillian spectra,particularly the stripe closest to the steady state. When dissipation is confined to a single boundary, the dynamical duality phenomenon still exists. Under this condition, the Liouvillian gap fulfills an exponential size scaling relation in the topologically non-trivial phase and a power-law size scaling relation in the topologically trivial phase. Within the topologically non-trivial region, we identify the existence of boundary-localized dark states in the thermodynamical limit, which is responsible for the exponential size decay of Liouvillian gap.
The measurement of topological number is crucial in the research of topological systems. Recently, the relations between the topological number and the dynamics are built. But a direct method to read out the topological number via the dynamics is still lacking. In this work, we propose a new dynamical protocol to directly measure the topological number of an unknown system. Different from common quench operations, we change the Hamiltonian of the unknown system to another one with known topological properties. After the quench, different initial states result in different particle number distributions on the post-quench final Bloch bands. Such distributions depend on the wavefunction overlap between the initial Bloch state and the final Bloch state, which is a complex number depending on the momentum. We prove a theorem that when the momentum varies by
2π, the phase of the wavefunction overlap change by
Δnπ where
Δn is the topological number difference between the initial Bloch band and the final Bloch band. Based on this and the known topological number of the final Bloch band, we can directly deduce the topological number of the initial state from the particle number distribution and need not track the evolution of the system nor measure the spin texture. Two experimental schemes are also proposed as well. These schemes provide a convenient and robust measurement method and also deepens the understanding of the relation between topology and dynamics.