Spelling suggestions: "subject:"bitopological quantum phases"" "subject:"astopological quantum phases""
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Nonequilibrium and semiclassical dynamics in topological phases of quantum matterRoy, Sthitadhi 05 November 2018 (has links)
The discovery of topological phases of quantum matter has brought about a new paradigm in the understanding of rich and exotic phases which fall outside the conventional classification of phases using Landau’s theory of broken symmetries. The thesis addresses various aspects of nonequilibrium and semiclassical dynamics in systems hosting such topological phases. While the study of nonequilibrium closed quantum systems is an exciting field in itself, it has gained a lot of importance in the context topological systems. Much of this has been fuelled by the immense progress in the experimental realisation of such topological systems with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. As measurements of real-time responses are natural in such experiments, they have served as ideal platforms to study the nonequilibrium responses of topological systems.
The studies presented in this thesis can be brought under the umbrella of two broad questions, first, how non-equilibrium dynamics can be used to characterize topological phases or locate topological critical points, and second, what new topological phases can be realized out of equilibrium.
Generally, non-trivial topology of a system manifests itself via quantised responses at the edges of a system or via appropriate non-local string order parameters which are rather difficult to measure in experiments. Local measurements in the bulk are more conducive to experiments. We address this question by showing that within a non-equilibrium setup obtained via a quantum quench, local bulk observables can show sharp signatures of topological quantum criticality via a non-analyticity in parameter space at the critical point. Although via non-local basis transformations, topological phase transitions can often be mapped onto conventional phase transitions, a remarkable aspect of this result is that within the non-equilibrium setup, the local bulk observables can locate the critical point in the natural basis where the phase transition is topological and not described by a local order parameter.
The next question that the thesis explores is how nonequilibrium and semiclassical dynamics, more precisely wavepacket dynamics, can be used to probe topological phases with an emphasis on Chern insulators in two dimensions. Chern insulators are essentially similar to quantum Hall systems except that they show quantised Hall responses in the absence of external magnetic fields due to intrinsically broken time-reversal symmetry. The Hall conductance in these systems is related to an integer-valued topological invariant characterising the energy bands, known as the Chern number, which is the net flux of Berry curvature through the entire two-dimensional Brillouin zone. The Berry curvature modifies the semiclassical equations of motion describing the dynamics of a wavepacket. Hence, the real-time motion of a wavepacket is used to map out the Berry curvature and thence the topology of the band. Complementary to these bulk responses, spatially local quenches in Chern insulators are also shown as probes for the presence or absence of chiral edge modes.
The idea of semiclassical equations of motion can be extended to the case of a three-dimensional Weyl semimetal. Weyl semimetals are a new class of gapless topological systems in three dimensions, elementary fermionic excitations of which are described by the Weyl equation. Since in cold atom experiments, magnetic fields are realized synthetically via phases in complex hoppings, exploring the Hofstadter limit is a natural scenario. When the magnetic field penetrating a two-dimensional system becomes so large that the associated magnetic length becomes comparable to the lattice spacing, the energy spectrum of the system is described by fractal known as the Hofstadter butterfly. We introduce the Weyl butterfly, a set of fractals which describes the spectrum of a Weyl semimetal subjected to a magnetic field, and we characterize the fractal set of Weyl nodes in the spectrum using wavepacket dynamics to reveal their chirality and location. Moreover, we show that the chiral anomaly -- a hallmark of the topological Weyl semimetal -- does not remain proportional to the magnetic field at large fields, but rather inherits a fractal structure of linear regimes as a function of external field.
Finally, the thesis addresses the question of novel nonequilibrium topological phases of matter. In the context of phase structures of nonequilibrium systems, periodically driven, also known as Floquet systems, has received a lot of attention. Moreover, the role of disorder has been shown to be rather crucial as generically such Floquet systems heat up to featureless infinite temperature states. Also, in the context of topological systems like Chern insulators, disorder is expected to play an interesting role given that it is important in localising the bulk cyclotron orbits in an integer quantum Hall system. With this motivation, the phase diagram of the disordered Chern insulator with a Floquet drive is explored in the thesis. In the model considered there are indeed topological Floquet edge modes which are exclusive to Floquet systems, for instance, the edge modes in gaps of the quasienergy spectrum around ±pi. There are also disorder-induced topological transitions between different Floquet topological phases, due to a mechanism shown to be of levitation-annihilation type.
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Non-conventional Many-body Phases in Ultracold Dipolar Systems / Phases à N corps non-conventionnelles dans des systemes ultra-froids dipolairesFedorov, Aleksey 28 June 2017 (has links)
Le problème de la détection et de ladescription des nouveaux états quantiquesmacroscopiques, caractérisées par des propriétésexotiques et non-conventionnelles, estd’importance fondamentale dans la physiquemoderne. Ces états offrent des perspectivesfascinantes dans le domaine de traitementd’information, de simulations quantiques et derecherche des nouveaux types des matériaux.Dans ce travail de thèse nous développons unethéorie qui permet de décrire des phases non conventionnellesdans des systèmes des gazultra-froids dipolaires. Ces systèmes sontactivement étudiés expérimentalement enutilisant des atomes à grand-spins, desmolécules polaires et des excitations dipolairesdans des semi-conducteurs. Nous mettonsl'accent sur la révélation du rôle de l’interactiondipôle-dipôle à long porté.Nous considérons l’effet de rotonization dansun système de gaz des bosons dipolaires «tiltés»aux interactions faibles dans une couchehomogène. Nous prédisons l’effet derotonization pour un gaz de Bose faiblementcorrélé des excitons dipolaires dans une couchede semi-conducteur et nous calculons lediagramme de stabilité. Ensuite, nousconsidérons des superfluides d’onde-p desfermions identiques dans des réseaux 2D.Finalement, nous faisons une discussion sur unautre état superfluide intéressant des moléculespolaires fermioniques, qui devrait apparaitredans des systèmes bicouches. / The problem of revealing anddescribing novel macroscopic quantum statescharacter- ized by exotic and non-conventionalproperties is of fundamental importance formodern physics. Such states offer fascinatingprospects for potential applications in quantumin- formation processing, quantum simulation,and material research. In the present Thesis wedevelop a theory for describing nonconventionalphases of ultracold dipolar gases.The related systems of large-spin atoms, polarmolecules, and dipolar excitons in semiconductorsare actively studied in experiments.We put the main emphasis on revealing the roleof the long-range character of the dipole-dipoleinteraction.We consider the effect of rotonization for a 2Dweakly interacting gas of tilted dipolar bosonsin a homogeneous layer. We predict the effectof rotonization for a weakly correlated Bosegas of dipolar excitons in a semiconductorlayer and calculate the stability diagram. Wethen consider p-wave superfluids of identicalfermions in 2D lattices. Finally, we discussanother interesting novel superfluid offermionic polar molecules
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INTERPLAY OF GEOMETRY WITH IMPURITIES AND DEFECTS IN TOPOLOGICAL STATES OF MATTERGuodong Jiang (10703055) 27 April 2021 (has links)
The discovery of topological quantum states of matter has required physicists to look beyond Landau’s theory of symmetry-breaking, previously the main paradigm for<br>studying states of matter. This has led also to the development of new topological theories for describing the novel properties. In this dissertation an investigation in this<br>frontier research area is presented, which looks at the interplay between the quantum geometry of these states, defects and disorder. After a brief introduction to the topological quantum states of matter considered herein, some aspects of my work in this area are described. First, the disorder-induced band structure engineering of topological insulator surface states is considered, which is possible due to their resilience from Anderson localization, and believed to be a consequence of their topological origin.<br>Next, the idiosyncratic behavior of these same surface states is considered, as observed in experiments on thin film topological insulators, in response to competition between<br>hybridization effects and an in-plane magnetic field. Then moving in a very different direction, the uncovering of topological ‘gravitational’ response is explained: the<br>topologically-protected charge response of two dimensional gapped electronic topological states to a special kind of 0-dimensional boundary – a disclination – that encodes spatial curvature. Finally, an intriguing relation between the gravitational response of quantum Hall states, and their response to an apparently unrelated perturbation – nonuniform electric fields is reported.
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