Response to polarization and weak topology in Chern insulators

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Vaidya, Sachin, Rechtsman, Mikael C., Benalcazar, Wladimir A.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Vaidya, Sachin
Rechtsman, Mikael C.
Benalcazar, Wladimir A.
author_facet Vaidya, Sachin
Rechtsman, Mikael C.
Benalcazar, Wladimir A.
contents Chern insulators present a topological obstruction to a smooth gauge in their Bloch wave functions that prevents the construction of exponentially-localized Wannier functions - this makes the electric polarization ill-defined. Here, we show that spatial or temporal differences in polarization within Chern insulators are well-defined and physically meaningful because they account for bound charges and adiabatic currents. We further show that the difference in polarization across Chern-insulator regions can be quantized in the presence of crystalline symmetries, leading to "weak" symmetry-protected topological phases. These phases exhibit charge fractional quantization at the edge and corner interfaces and with concomitant topological states. We also generalize our findings to quantum spin-Hall insulators and 3D topological insulators. Our work settles a long-standing question and deems the bulk polarization as the fundamental quantity with a "bulk-boundary correspondence", regardless of whether a Wannier representation is possible.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_13118
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Response to polarization and weak topology in Chern insulators
Vaidya, Sachin
Rechtsman, Mikael C.
Benalcazar, Wladimir A.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Optics
Chern insulators present a topological obstruction to a smooth gauge in their Bloch wave functions that prevents the construction of exponentially-localized Wannier functions - this makes the electric polarization ill-defined. Here, we show that spatial or temporal differences in polarization within Chern insulators are well-defined and physically meaningful because they account for bound charges and adiabatic currents. We further show that the difference in polarization across Chern-insulator regions can be quantized in the presence of crystalline symmetries, leading to "weak" symmetry-protected topological phases. These phases exhibit charge fractional quantization at the edge and corner interfaces and with concomitant topological states. We also generalize our findings to quantum spin-Hall insulators and 3D topological insulators. Our work settles a long-standing question and deems the bulk polarization as the fundamental quantity with a "bulk-boundary correspondence", regardless of whether a Wannier representation is possible.
title Response to polarization and weak topology in Chern insulators
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.13118