Theory of Berry Singularity Markers: Diagnosing Topological Phase Transitions via Lock-In Tomography

Abstract

This work brings forward an alternative experimental approach to infer the topological character of phase transitions in insulators. This method relies on subjecting the target system to a set of external fields, each of which consists of two parts, i.e., a weak spatiotemporally slowly-varying component on top of a constant offset. The fields are chosen in such a way, so that they respectively induce slow variations in the wave vector describing the bulk band structure, as well as a parameter which allows tuning the bulk gap. Such a process maps the Berry singularities of the base space to a synthetic space spanned by the parameters related to the external fields. By measuring the response of the system to the weak part of the perturbations, when these are additionally chosen to form spacetime textures, one can construct a quantity that is here-termed Berry singularity marker (BSM). The BSM enables the Berry singularity detection as it becomes nonzero only in the close vicinity of a Berry singularity and is equal to its charge. The calculation of the BSM requires the measurement of the susceptibility tensor for the applied external fields. Near the Berry singularities, the BSM is dominated by a universal value, which is determined by the quantum metric tensor of the system. While in this work I restrict to 1D AIII insulators, the proposed approach is general. Notably, a key feature of the present method is that it can be implemented in a lock-in fashion, that is, one can "filter out" from the BSM any possible contribution from disorder by performing more measurements. Hence, the present construction paves the way for a disorder resilient diagnosis of topological phase transitions, that appears particularly relevant for disordered topological insulator and hybrid Majorana platforms, while it can be readily implemented using topo-electric circuits.