arXiv subjects

Taylor L. Hughes

Publications and source records attributed to Taylor L. Hughes.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Many-Body Electric Multipole Operators in Extended Systems

The quantum mechanical position operators, and their products, are not well-defined in systems obeying periodic boundary conditions. Here we extend the work of Resta who developed a formalism to calculate the electronic polarization as an expectation value of a many-body operator, to include higher multipole moments, e.g., quadrupole and octupole. We define $n$-th order multipole operators whose expectation values can be used to calculate the $n$-th multipole moment when all of the lower moments are vanishing (modulo a quantum). We show that changes in our operators are tied to flows of $n-1$-st multipole currents, and encode the adiabatic evolution of the system in the presence of an $n-1$-st gradient of the electric field. Finally, we test our operators on a set of tightbinding models to show that they correctly determine the phase diagrams of topological quadrupole and octupole models, capture an adiabatic quadrupole pump, and distinguish a bulk quadrupole moment from other mechanisms that generate corner charges.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Theory of Dipole Insulators

Insulating systems are characterized by their insensitivity to twisted boundary conditions as quantified by the charge stiffness and charge localization length. The latter quantity was shown to be related to the expectation value of the many-body position operator and serves as a universal criterion to distinguish between metals and insulators. In this work we extend these concepts to a new class of quantum systems having conserved charge and dipole moments. We refine the concept of a charge insulator by introducing notions of multipolar insulators, e.g., a charge insulator could be a dipole insulator or dipole metal. We develop a universal criterion to distinguish between these phases by extending the concept of charge stiffness and localization to analogous versions for multipole moments, but with our focus on dipoles. We are able relate the dipole localization scale to the expectation value of a recently introduced many-body quadrupole operator. This refined structure allows for the identification of phase transitions where charge remains localized but, e.g., dipoles delocalize. We illustrate the proposed criterion using several exactly solvable models that exemplify these concepts, and discuss a possible realization in cold-atom systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Multipolar Topological Field Theories: Bridging Higher Order Topological Insulators and Fractons

Two new recently proposed classes of topological phases, namely fractons and higher order topological insulators (HOTIs), share at least superficial similarities. The wide variety of proposals for these phases calls for a universal field theory description that captures their key characteristic physical phenomena. In this work, we construct topological multipolar response theories that capture the essential features of some classes of fractons and higher order topological insulators. Remarkably, we find that despite their distinct symmetry structure, some classes of fractons and HOTIs can be connected through their essentially identical topological response theories. More precisely, we propose a topological quadrupole response theory that describes both a 2D symmetry enriched fracton phase and a related bosonic quadrupolar HOTI with strong interactions. Such a topological quadrupole term encapsulates the protected corner charge modes and, for the HOTI, predicts an anomalous edge with fractional dipole moment. In 3D we propose a dipolar Chern-Simons theory with a quantized coefficient as a description of the response of both second order HOTIs harboring chiral hinge currents, and of a related fracton phase. This theory correctly predicts chiral currents on the hinges and anomalous dipole currents on the surfaces. We generalize these results to higher dimensions to reveal a family of multipolar Chern-Simons terms and related $θ$-term actions that can be reached via dimensional reduction or extension from the Chern-Simons theories.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Second-order Dirac superconductors and magnetic field induced Majorana hinge modes

We identify three-dimensional higher-order superconductors characterized by the coexistence of one-dimensional Majorana hinge states and gapless surface sates. We show how such superconductors can be obtained starting from the model of a spinful quadrupolar semimetal with two orbitals and adding an s-wave superconducting pairing term. By considering all the possible s-wave pairings satisfying Fermi-Dirac statistics we obtain six different superconducting models. We find that for two of these models a flat-band of hinge Majorana states coexist with surface states, and that these models have a non-vanishing quadrupole-like topological invariant. Two of the other models, in the presence of a Zeeman term, exhibit helical and dispersive hinge states localized only at two of the four hinges. We find that these states are protected by combinations of rotation and mirror symmetries, and that the pair of corners exhibiting hinge states switches upon changing the sign of the Zeeman term. Furthermore, we show that these states can be localized to a single hinge with suitable perturbations. The remaining two models retain gapless bulk and surface states that spectroscopically obscure any possible hinge states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Robust topological invariants of topological crystalline phases in the presence of impurities

Topological crystalline phases (TCPs) are topological states protected by spatial symmetries. A broad range of TCPs have been conventionally studied by formulating topological invariants (symmetry indicators) at invariant momenta in the Brillouin zone, which leaves open the question of their stability in the absence of translational invariance. In this work, we show that robust basis-independent topological invariants can be generically constructed for TCPs using projected symmetry operators. Remarkably we show that the real-space topological markers of these invariants are exponentially localized to the fixed points of the spatial symmetry. As a result, this real-space structure protects them against the presence of impurities that are located away from the fixed points. By considering all possible symmetry centers in a crystalline system we can generate a mesh of real-space topological markers that can provide a local topological distinction for TCPs. We illustrate the robustness of this mesh of invariants with 1D and 2D TCPs protected by inversion, rotational and mirror symmetries. Finally, we find that the boundary modes of these TCPs can also exhibit robust topological invariants with localized markers on the edges. We illustrate this with the gapless Majorana boundary modes of mirror-symmetric topological superconductors, and relate their integer topological edge invariant with a quantized effective edge polarization.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2019

Robust temporal pumping in a magneto-mechanical topological insulator

The transport of energy through 1-dimensional (1D) waveguiding channels can be affected by sub-wavelength disorder, resulting in undesirable localization and backscattering phenomena. However, quantized disorder-resilient transport is observable in the edge currents of 2-dimensional (2D) topological band insulators with broken time-reversal symmetry. Topological pumps are able to reduce this higher-dimensional topological insulator phenomena to lower dimensionality by utilizing a pumping parameter (either space or time) as an artificial dimension. Here we demonstrate the first temporal topological pump that produces on-demand, robust transport of mechanical energy using a 1D magneto-mechanical metamaterial. We experimentally demonstrate that the system is uniquely resilient to defects occurring in both space and time Our findings open a new path towards exploration of higher-dimensional topological physics with time as a synthetic dimension.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Quantization of fractional corner charge in $C_n$-symmetric higher-order topological crystalline insulators

In the presence of crystalline symmetries, certain topological insulators present a filling anomaly: a mismatch between the number of electrons in an energy band and the number of electrons required for charge neutrality. In this paper, we show that a filling anomaly can arise when corners are introduced in $C_n$-symmetric crystalline insulators with vanishing polarization, having as consequence the existence of corner-localized charges quantized in multiples of $\frac{e}{n}$. We characterize the existence of this charge systematically and build topological indices that relate the symmetry representations of the occupied energy bands of a crystal to the quanta of fractional charge robustly localized at its corners. When an additional chiral symmetry is present, $\frac{e}{2}$ corner charges are accompanied by zero-energy corner-localized states. We show the application of our indices in a number of atomic and fragile topological insulators and discuss the role of fractional charges bound to disclinations as bulk probes for these crystalline phases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Semi-classical wave packet dynamics in non-uniform electric fields

We study the semi-classical theory of wave packet dynamics in crystalline solids extended to include the effects of a non-uniform electric field. In particular, we derive a correction to the semi-classical equations of motion (EOMs) for the dynamics of the wave packet center that depends on the gradient of the electric field and on the quantum metric (also called the Fubini-Study, Bures, or Bloch metric) on the Brillouin zone. We show that the physical origin of this term is a contribution to the total energy of the wave packet that depends on its electric quadrupole moment and on the electric field gradient. We also derive an equation relating the electric quadrupole moment of a sharply peaked wave packet to the quantum metric evaluated at the wave packet center in reciprocal space. Finally, we explore the physical consequences of this correction to the semi-classical EOMs. We show that in a metal with broken time-reversal and inversion symmetry, an electric field gradient can generate a longitudinal current which is linear in the electric field gradient, and which depends on the quantum metric at the Fermi surface. We then give two examples of concrete lattice models in which this effect occurs. Our results show that non-uniform electric fields can be used to probe the quantum geometry of the electronic bands in metals and open the door to further studies of the effects of non-uniform electric fields in solids.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Strong nonreciprocity in modulated resonator chains through synthetic electric and magnetic fields

We study nonreciprocity in spatiotemporally modulated 1D resonator chains from the perspective of equivalent 2D resonator arrays with a synthetic dimension and transverse synthetic electric and magnetic fields. The synthetic fields are respectively related to temporal and spatial modulation of the resonator chain, and we show that their combination can break transmission reciprocity without additional elements. This nonreciprocal effect is analogous to the Hall effect for charged particles. We experimentally implement chains of 2 and 3 spatiotemporally modulated resonators and measure over 58 dB of isolation contrast.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Geometric quench in the fractional quantum Hall effect: exact solution in quantum Hall matrix models and comparison with bimetric theory

We investigate the recently introduced geometric quench protocol for fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states within the framework of exactly solvable quantum Hall matrix models. In the geometric quench protocol a FQH state is subjected to a sudden change in the ambient geometry, which introduces anisotropy into the system. We formulate this quench in the matrix models and then we solve exactly for the post-quench dynamics of the system and the quantum fidelity (Loschmidt echo) of the post-quench state. Next, we explain how to define a spin-2 collective variable $\hat{g}_{ab}(t)$ in the matrix models, and we show that for a weak quench (small anisotropy) the dynamics of $\hat{g}_{ab}(t)$ agrees with the dynamics of the intrinsic metric governed by the recently discussed bimetric theory of FQH states. We also find a modification of the bimetric theory such that the predictions of the modified bimetric theory agree with those of the matrix model for arbitrarily strong quenches. Finally, we introduce a class of higher-spin collective variables for the matrix model, which are related to generators of the $W_{\infty}$ algebra, and we show that the geometric quench induces nontrivial dynamics for these variables.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Corner Modes and Ground-State Degeneracy in Models with Gauge-Like Subsystem Symmetries

Subsystem symmetries are intermediate between global and gauge symmetries. One can treat these symmetries either like global symmetries that act on subregions of a system, or gauge symmetries that act on the regions transverse to the regions acted upon by the symmetry. We show that this latter interpretation can lead to an understanding of global, topology-dependent features in systems with subsystem symmetries. We demonstrate this with an exactly-solvable lattice model constructed from a 2D system of bosons coupled to a vector field with a 1D subsystem symmetry. The model is shown to host a robust ground state degeneracy that depends on the spatial topology of the underlying manifold, and localized zero energy modes on corners of the system. A continuum field theory description of these phenomena is derived in terms of an anisotropic, modified version of the Abelian K-matrix Chern-Simons field theory. We show that this continuum description can lead to geometric-type effects such as corner states and edge states whose character depends on the orientation of the edge.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Weak-Pairing Higher Order Topological Superconductors

Conventional topological superconductors are fully gapped in the bulk but host gapless Majorana modes on their boundaries. We instead focus on a new class of superconductors, second-order topological superconductors, that have gapped, topological surfaces and gapless Majorana modes instead on lower-dimensional boundaries, i.e., corners of a two-dimensional system or hinges for a three-dimensional system. Here we propose two general scenarios in which second-order topological superconductivity can be realized spontaneously with weak-pairing instabilities. First, we show that $p_x+ip_y$-wave pairing in a (doped) Dirac semimetal in two dimensions with four mirror symmetric Dirac nodes realizes second-order topological superconductivity. Second, we show that $p+id$ pairing on an ordinary spin-degenerate Fermi sruface realizes second-order topological superconductivity as well. In the latter case we find that the topological invariants describing the system can be written using simple formulae involving only the low-energy properties of the Fermi surfaces and superconducting pairing. In both cases we show that these exotic superconducting states can be intrinsically realized in a metallic system with electronic interactions. For the latter case we also show it can be induced by proximity effect in a heterostructure of cuprate and topological superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2018

Families of Gapped Interfaces Between Fractional Quantum Hall States

Some interfaces between two different topologically ordered systems can be gapped. In earlier work it has been shown that such gapped interfaces can themselves be effective one dimensional topological systems that possess localized topological modes in open boundary geometries. Here we focus on how this occurs in the context of an interface between two, single-component Laughlin states of opposite chirality, and with filling fractions $ν_1=1/p$ and $ν_2=1/pn^2$. While one type of interface in such systems has been previously studied, we show that allowing for edge reconstruction effects opens up a wide variety of possible gapped interfaces depending on the number of divisors of $n.$ We apply a complementary description of the $ν_2=1/pn^2$ system in terms of Laughlin states coupled to a discrete gauge $\mathbb{Z}_n$ field. This enables us to identify possible interfaces to the $ν_1$ system based on complete or partial confinement of this gauge field. We determine the tunneling properties, ground state degeneracy, and the nature of the non-Abelian zero modes of each interface in order to physically distinguish them.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Higher Order Bosonic Topological Phases in Spin Models

We discuss an extension of higher order topological phases to include bosonic systems. We present two spin models for a second-order topological phase protected by a global $\mathbb{Z}_2\times\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry. One model is built from layers of an exactly solvable cluster model for a one-dimensional $\mathbb{Z}_2\times\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological phase, while the other is built from more conventional spin-couplings (XY or Heisenberg). These models host gapped, but topological, edges, and protected corner modes that fall into a projective representation of the symmetry. Using Jordan-Wigner transformations we show that our models are both related to a bilayer of free Majorana fermions that form a fermionic second-order topological phase. We also discuss how our models can be extended to three-dimensions to form a third-order topological phase.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Symmetry-Protected Topological Interfaces and Entanglement Sequences

Gapped interfaces (and boundaries) of two-dimensional (2D) Abelian topological phases are shown to support a remarkably rich sequence of 1D symmetry-protected topological (SPT) states. We show that such interfaces can provide a physical interpretation for the corrections to the topological entanglement entropy of a 2D state with Abelian topological order found in Ref.~\onlinecite{cano-2015}. The topological entanglement entropy decomposes as $γ= γ_a + γ_s$, where $γ_a > 0$ only depends on universal topological properties of the 2D state, while a correction $γ_s > 0$ signals the emergence of the 1D SPT state that is produced by interactions along the entanglement cut and provides a direct measure of the stabilizing symmetry of the resulting SPT state. A correspondence is established between the possible values of $γ_s$ associated with a given interface - which is named Boundary Topological Entanglement Sequence - and classes of 1D SPT states. We show that symmetry-preserving domain walls along such 1D interfaces (or boundaries) generally host localized parafermion-like excitations that are stable to local symmetry-preserving perturbations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Hall Viscosity in the Non-Abelian Quantum Hall Matrix Model

Quantum Hall matrix models are simple, solvable quantum mechanical systems which capture the physics of certain fractional quantum Hall states. Recently, it was shown that the Hall viscosity can be extracted from the matrix model for Laughlin states. Here we extend this calculation to the matrix models for a class of non-Abelian quantum Hall states. These states, which were previously introduced by Blok and Wen, arise from the conformal blocks of Wess-Zumino-Witten conformal field theory models. We show that the Hall viscosity computed from the matrix model coincides with a result of Read, in which the Hall viscosity is determined in terms of the weights of primary operators of an associated conformal field theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Hall viscosity and geometric response in the Chern-Simons matrix model of the Laughlin states

We study geometric aspects of the Laughlin fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states using a description of these states in terms of a matrix quantum mechanics model known as the Chern-Simons matrix model (CSMM). This model was proposed by Polychronakos as a regularization of the noncommutative Chern-Simons theory description of the Laughlin states proposed earlier by Susskind. Both models can be understood as describing the electrons in a FQH state as forming a noncommutative fluid, i.e., a fluid occupying a noncommutative space. Here we revisit the CSMM in light of recent work on geometric response in the FQH effect, with the goal of determining whether the CSMM captures this aspect of the physics of the Laughlin states. For this model we compute the Hall viscosity, Hall conductance in a non-uniform electric field, and the Hall viscosity in the presence of anisotropy (or intrinsic geometry). Our calculations show that the CSMM captures the guiding center contribution to the known values of these quantities in the Laughlin states, but lacks the Landau orbit contribution. The interesting correlations in a Laughlin state are contained entirely in the guiding center part of the state/wave function, and so we conclude that the CSMM accurately describes the most important aspects of the physics of the Laughlin FQH states, including the Hall viscosity and other geometric properties of these states which are of current interest.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Embedded Topological Insulators

We present a generalization of free fermionic topological insulators that are composed of topological subsystems of differing dimensionality. We specifically focus on topological subsystems of nonzero co-dimension are embedded within a trivial insulating environment. A general procedure is described to isolate and classify such embedded topological insulators and we present three representative examples in varying dimensions and symmetry classes. Moreover, we demonstrate with concrete examples that the presence of periodically embedded topological insulators in an otherwise trivially classified system can lead to topologically non-trivial physical phenomena on crystalline defects; namely, novel topological surface/edge modes at stacking faults and partial edge dislocations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗