Quasiparticle excitations in a one-dimensional interacting topological insulator: Application for dopant-based quantum simulation

Abstract

We study the effects of electron-electron interactions on the charge excitation spectrum of the spinful Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, a prototype of a 1D bulk obstructed topological insulator. In view of recent progress in the fabrication of dopant-based quantum simulators we focus on experimentally detectable signatures of interacting topology in finite lattices. To this end we use Lanczos-based exact diagonalization to calculate the single-particle spectral function in real space which generalizes the local density of states to interacting systems. Its spatial and spectral resolution allows for the direct investigation and identification of edge states. By studying the non-interacting limit, we demonstrate that the topological in-gap states on the boundary are robust against both finite-size effects as well as random bond and onsite disorder which suggests the feasibility of simulating the SSH model in engineered dopant arrays in silicon. While edge excitations become zero-energy spin-like for any finite interaction strength, our analysis of the spectral function shows that the single-particle charge excitations are gapped out on the boundary. Despite the loss of topological protection we find that these edge excitations are quasiparticle-like as long as they remain within the bulk gap. Above a critical interaction strength of $U_c\approx 5 t$ these quasiparticles on the boundary loose their coherence which is explained by the merging of edge and bulk states. This is in contrast to the many-body edge excitations which survive the limit of strong coupling, as established in the literature. Our findings show that for moderate repulsive interactions the non-trivial phase of the interacting SSH model can be detected through remnant signatures of topological single-particle states using single-particle local measurement techniques such as scanning tunneling spectroscopy.