Real-space imaging of a topologically protected edge state with ultracold atoms in an amplitude-chirped optical lattice

Martin Leder (), Christopher Grossert, Lukas Sitta, Maximilian Genske, Achim Rosch and Martin Weitz ()
Additional contact information
Martin Leder: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn
Christopher Grossert: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn
Lukas Sitta: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn
Martin Weitz: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract To describe a mobile defect in polyacetylene chains, Su, Schrieffer and Heeger formulated a model assuming two degenerate energy configurations that are characterized by two different topological phases. An immediate consequence was the emergence of a soliton-type edge state located at the boundary between two regions of different configurations. Besides giving first insights in the electrical properties of polyacetylene materials, interest in this effect also stems from its close connection to states with fractional charge from relativistic field theory. Here, using a one-dimensional optical lattice for cold rubidium atoms with a spatially chirped amplitude, we experimentally realize an interface between two spatial regions of different topological order in an atomic physics system. We directly observe atoms confined in the edge state at the intersection by optical real-space imaging and characterize the state as well as the size of the associated energy gap. Our findings hold prospects for the spectroscopy of surface states in topological matter and for the quantum simulation of interacting Dirac systems.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13112 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13112

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13112

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().