It has been well established that for symmetry protected topological systems, the non-trivial topology prevents a real space representation using exponentially localized Wannier wavefunctions (WFs) in all directions, unless the protecting symmetry is sacrificed as an on-site transformation. This makes it challenging to determine the symmetry of various physical observables represented using such WFs. In this work, we propose a practical method for overcoming such challenges using the Kane-Mele model as a concrete example. We present a systematic procedure for diagnosing the symmetry of any observables, as well as a method for constructing symmetric operators up to arbitrary truncation accuracy.
Quantum-disordering a discrete-symmetry breaking state by condensing domain-walls can lead to a trivial symmetric insulator state. In this work, we show that if we bind a 1D representation of the symmetry (such as a charge) to the intersection point of several domain walls, condensing such modified domain-walls can lead to a non-trivial symmetry-protected topological (SPT) state. This result is obtained by showing that the modified domain-wall condensed state has a non-trivial SPT invariant -- the symmetry-twist dependent partition function. We propose two different kinds of field theories tha…
Almost strong edge-mode operators arising at the boundaries of certain interacting 1D symmetry protected topological phases with \(Z_2\) symmetry have infinite temperature lifetimes that are non-perturbatively long in the integrability breaking terms, making them promising as bits for quantum information processing. We extract the lifetime of these edge-mode operators for small system sizes as well as in the thermodynamic limit. For the latter, a Lanczos scheme is employed to map the operator dynamics to a one dimensional tight-binding model of a single particle in Krylov space. We find this m…
We discuss a general diagnosis scheme for topological nodal lines protected by time-reversal symmetry and space-inversion symmetry, in the absence of spin-orbit coupling. It is shown that when a shallow band inversion (with a small inverted gap) appears at the $Γ$-point in the Brillouin zone, nodal lines are generated along with the inversion. Much information on the types and numbers of these nodal lines can be related to the rotation eigenvalues and inversion eigenvalues of the inverted bands. In addition, we establish a $\mathbb{Z}$-type monopole charge for nodal lines with fourfold or sixf…
Topological Protection by Local Support Symmetry and Destructive Interference
Ajou University（亚洲大学）；Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology（韩国科学技术院）；Konkuk University（建国大学）；Hongik University（弘益大学）；Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）；Donostia International Physics Center（圣塞巴斯蒂安国际物理中心）；IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science（伊卡巴斯基奎，巴斯克科学基金会）
We study a two-dimensional (2D) tight-binding model of a topological crystalline insulator (TCI) protected by rotation symmetry. The model is built by stacking two Chern insulators with opposite Chern numbers which transform under conjugate representations of the rotation group, e.g. $p_\pm$ orbitals. Despite its apparent similarity to the Kane-Mele model, it does not host stable gapless surface states. Nevertheless the model exhibits topological responses including the appearance of quantized fractional charge bound to rotational defects (disclinations) and the pumping of angular momentum in …
Topological crystalline states are short-range entangled states jointly protected by onsite and crystalline symmetries. While the non-interacting limit of these states, e.g., the topological crystalline insulators, have been intensively studied in band theory and have been experimentally discovered, the classification and diagnosis of their strongly interacting counterparts are relatively less well understood. Here we present a unified scheme for constructing all topological crystalline states, bosonic and fermionic, free and interacting, from real-space "building blocks" and "connectors". Bui…
Recent years saw the complete classification of topological band structures, revealing an abundance of topological crystalline insulators. Here we theoretically demonstrate the existence of topological materials beyond this framework, protected by quasicrystalline symmetries. We construct a higher-order topological phase protected by a point group symmetry that is impossible in any crystalline system. Our tight-binding model describes a superconductor on a quasicrystalline Ammann-Beenker tiling which hosts localized Majorana zero modes at the corners of an octagonal sample. The Majorana modes …
We report the appearance of nontrivial topological phases in a tight-binding model on the stuffed honeycomb lattice. The model contains nearest neighbor and next nearest neighbor hopping terms coupled with an additional phase depending on the direction of hopping. Chern insulating and semi-metallic phases emerge with the change of hopping parameters. Nonzero Chern numbers characterizing the bands and the existence of topologically protected edge states in the gap between the relevant bands confirm the presence of those phases. We show that adding an extra basis to Haldane's honeycomb model can…
Higher Order Topological Insulators (HOTI) are $d$-spatial dimensional systems featuring topologically protected gap-less states at their $(d-n)$-dimensional boundaries. With the help of \textit{ab-initio} calculations and tight binding models along with symmetry considerations we show that monolayer buckled honeycomb structures of group-V elements (Sb,As), which have already been synthesized, belong in this category and have a charge fractionalization of $\frac{e}{2}$ at the corner states as well as weak topological edge states, all protected by their properties under the inversion operation …
Topological insulators support metallic surface states whose existence is protected by the bulk band structure. It has been predicted early that the topology of the surface state Fermi contour should depend on several factors, such as the surface orientation and termination and this raises the question to what degree a given surface state is protected by the bulk electronic structure upon structural changes. Using tight-binding calculations, we explore this question for the prototypical topological insulator Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_x$, studying different terminations of the (111) and (110) surfaces. We …
The search for new realization of topologically protected edge states is an active area of research. We show that a tilt boundary in gated multi-layer graphene supports topologically protected gapless kink states, associated with quantum valley Hall insulator (QVH). We investigate such kink states from two perspectives: the microscopic perspective of a tight-binding model and an ab-initio calculation on bilayer, and the perspective of symmetry protected topological (SPT) states for general multi-layer. We show that a AB-BA bilayer tilt boundary supports gapless kink states that are undeterred …
Strongly correlated analogues of topological insulators have been explored in systems with purely on-site symmetries, such as time-reversal or charge conservation. Here, we use recently developed tensor network tools to study a quantum state of interacting bosons which is featureless in the bulk, but distinguished from an atomic insulator in that it exhibits entanglement which is protected by its spatial symmetries. These properties are encoded in a model many-body wavefunction that describes a fully symmetric insulator of bosons on the honeycomb lattice at half filling per site. While the res…
Motivated by intertwined crystal symmetries and topological phases, we study the possible realization of topological insulator in nonsymmorphic crystals at integer fillings. In particular, we consider spin orbit coupled electronic systems of two-dimensional crystal Shastry-Sutherland lattice at integer filling where the gapless line degeneracy is protected by glide reflection symmetry. Based on a simple tight-binding model, we investigate how the topological insulating phase is stabilized by breaking nonsymmorphic symmetries but in the presence of time reversal symmetry and inversion symmetry.…
The systematic diagnosis of band topology enabled by the method of "symmetry indicators" underlies the recent advances in the search for new materials realizing topological crystalline insulators. Such an efficient method has been missing for superconductors because the band structure in the superconducting phase is not usually available. In this work, we establish symmetry indicators for weak-coupling superconductors that detect nontrivial topology based on the representations of the metallic band structure in the normal phase, assuming a symmetry property of the gap function. We demonstrate …
