Real-space imaging of a topological protected edge state with ultracold atoms in an amplitude-chirped optical lattice

Abstract

Topological states of matter, as quantum Hall systems or topological insulators, cannot be distinguished from ordinary matter by local measurements in the bulk of the material. Instead, global measurements are required, revealing topological invariants as the Chern number. At the heart of topological materials are topologically protected edge states that occur at the intersection between regions of different topological order. Ultracold atomic gases in optical lattices are promising new platforms for topological states of matter, though the observation of edge states has so far been restricted in these systems to the state space imposed by the internal atomic structure. Here we report on the observation of an edge state between two topological distinct phases of an atomic physics system in real space using optical microscopy. An interface between two spatial regions of different topological order is realized in a one-dimensional optical lattice of spatially chirped amplitude. To reach this, a magnetic field gradient causes a spatial variation of the Raman detuning in an atomic rubidium three- level system and a corresponding spatial variation of the coupling between momentum eigenstates. This novel experimental technique realizes a cold atom system described by a Dirac equation with an inhomogeneous mass term closely related to the SSH-model. The observed edge state is characterized by measuring the overlap to various initial states, revealing that this topological state has singlet nature in contrast to the other system eigenstates, which occur pairwise. We also determine the size of the energy gap to the adjacent eigenstate doublet. Our findings hold prospects for the spectroscopy of surface states in topological matter and for the quantum simulation of interacting Dirac systems.