Symmetry-protected topological polarons
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866908785493147648 |
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| author | Luo, Kaifa Lafuente-Bartolome, Jon Giustino, Feliciano |
| author_facet | Luo, Kaifa Lafuente-Bartolome, Jon Giustino, Feliciano |
| contents | Emergent quasiparticles in solids often exhibit unique topological properties as a result of the complex interplay between charge, orbital, spin and lattice degrees of freedom. Among these quasiparticles, the polaron occupies a special place as the first known manifestation of the interaction between a fermion and a boson field. While polarons have been investigated for almost a century, whether these quasiparticles exhibit topological properties and why remain open questions. Here, we establish the universal symmetry principles governing the topology of polar textures in large polarons. Using a group-theoretic analysis, we identify four distinct classes of polar textures in time-reversal-invariant systems, and we show that they carry integer topological charges. We validate this classfication by performing state-of-the-art first-principles calculations of materials representative of each class. For these materials, we compute the fingerprints of polaron topology in Huang diffuse scattering, and propose ultrafast electron and X-ray scattering experiments to detect these quasiparticles. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_17235 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Symmetry-protected topological polarons Luo, Kaifa Lafuente-Bartolome, Jon Giustino, Feliciano Materials Science Applied Physics Emergent quasiparticles in solids often exhibit unique topological properties as a result of the complex interplay between charge, orbital, spin and lattice degrees of freedom. Among these quasiparticles, the polaron occupies a special place as the first known manifestation of the interaction between a fermion and a boson field. While polarons have been investigated for almost a century, whether these quasiparticles exhibit topological properties and why remain open questions. Here, we establish the universal symmetry principles governing the topology of polar textures in large polarons. Using a group-theoretic analysis, we identify four distinct classes of polar textures in time-reversal-invariant systems, and we show that they carry integer topological charges. We validate this classfication by performing state-of-the-art first-principles calculations of materials representative of each class. For these materials, we compute the fingerprints of polaron topology in Huang diffuse scattering, and propose ultrafast electron and X-ray scattering experiments to detect these quasiparticles. |
| title | Symmetry-protected topological polarons |
| topic | Materials Science Applied Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.17235 |