Generalized Skyrmions

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wang, An Aloysius, Zhao, Zimo, Ma, Yifei, Cai, Yuxi, Morris, Stephen, He, Honghui, Luo, Lin, Xie, Zhenwei, Shi, Peng, Shen, Yijie, Zayats, Anatoly, Yuan, Xiaocong, He, Chao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913519202467840
author Wang, An Aloysius
Zhao, Zimo
Ma, Yifei
Cai, Yuxi
Morris, Stephen
He, Honghui
Luo, Lin
Xie, Zhenwei
Shi, Peng
Shen, Yijie
Zayats, Anatoly
Yuan, Xiaocong
He, Chao
author_facet Wang, An Aloysius
Zhao, Zimo
Ma, Yifei
Cai, Yuxi
Morris, Stephen
He, Honghui
Luo, Lin
Xie, Zhenwei
Shi, Peng
Shen, Yijie
Zayats, Anatoly
Yuan, Xiaocong
He, Chao
contents Skyrmions are important topologically non-trivial fields characteristic of models spanning scales from the microscopic to the cosmological. However, the Skyrmion number can only be defined for fields with specific boundary conditions, limiting its use in broader contexts. Here, we address this issue through a generalized notion of the Skyrmion derived from the De Rham cohomology of compactly supported forms. This allows for the definition of an entirely new $\coprod_{i=1}^\infty \mathbb{Z}^i$-valued topological number that assigns a tuple of integers $(a_1, \ldots, a_k)\in \mathbb{Z}^k$ to a field instead of a single number, with no restrictions to its boundary. The notion of the generalized Skyrmion presented in this paper is completely abstract and can be applied to vector fields in any discipline, not unlike index theory within dynamical systems. To demonstrate the power of our new formalism, we focus on the propagation of optical polarization fields and show that our newly defined generalized Skyrmion number significantly increases the dimension of data that can be stored within the field while also demonstrating strong robustness. Our work represents a fundamental paradigm shift away from the study of fields with natural topological character to engineered fields that can be artificially embedded with topological structures.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_17390
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Generalized Skyrmions
Wang, An Aloysius
Zhao, Zimo
Ma, Yifei
Cai, Yuxi
Morris, Stephen
He, Honghui
Luo, Lin
Xie, Zhenwei
Shi, Peng
Shen, Yijie
Zayats, Anatoly
Yuan, Xiaocong
He, Chao
Optics
Skyrmions are important topologically non-trivial fields characteristic of models spanning scales from the microscopic to the cosmological. However, the Skyrmion number can only be defined for fields with specific boundary conditions, limiting its use in broader contexts. Here, we address this issue through a generalized notion of the Skyrmion derived from the De Rham cohomology of compactly supported forms. This allows for the definition of an entirely new $\coprod_{i=1}^\infty \mathbb{Z}^i$-valued topological number that assigns a tuple of integers $(a_1, \ldots, a_k)\in \mathbb{Z}^k$ to a field instead of a single number, with no restrictions to its boundary. The notion of the generalized Skyrmion presented in this paper is completely abstract and can be applied to vector fields in any discipline, not unlike index theory within dynamical systems. To demonstrate the power of our new formalism, we focus on the propagation of optical polarization fields and show that our newly defined generalized Skyrmion number significantly increases the dimension of data that can be stored within the field while also demonstrating strong robustness. Our work represents a fundamental paradigm shift away from the study of fields with natural topological character to engineered fields that can be artificially embedded with topological structures.
title Generalized Skyrmions
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.17390