The topological characterization of nonequilibrium topological matter is highly nontrivial because familiar approaches designed for equilibrium topological phases may not apply. In the presence of crystal symmetry, Floquet topological insulator states cannot be easily distinguished from normal insulators by a set of symmetry eigenvalues at high symmetry points in the Brillouin zone. This work advocates a physically motivated, easy-to-implement approach to enhance the symmetry analysis to distinguish between a variety of Floquet topological phases. Using a two-dimensional inversion-symmetric periodically-driven system as an example, we show that the symmetry eigenvalues for anomalous Floquet topological states, of both first-order and second-order, are the same as for normal atomic insulators. However, the topological states can be distinguished from one another and from normal insulators by inspecting the occurrence of stable symmetry inversion points in their microscopic dynamics. The analysis points to a simple picture for understanding how topological boundary states can coexist with localized bulk states in anomalous Floquet topological phases.
In Hermitian topological systems, the bulk-boundary correspondence strictly constraints boundary transport to values determined by the topological properties of the bulk. We demonstrate that this constraint can be lifted in non-Hermitian Floquet insulators. Provided that the insulator supports an anomalous topological phase, non-Hermiticity allows us to modify the boundary states independently of the bulk, without sacrificing their topological nature. We explore the ensuing possibilities for a Floquet topological insulator with non-Hermitian time-reversal symmetry, where the helical transport …
We show that non-Hermiticity enables topological phases with unidirectional transport in one-dimensional Floquet chains. The topological signatures of these phases are non-contractible loops in the spectrum of the Floquet propagator that are separated by an imaginary gap. Such loops occur exclusively in non-Hermitian Floquet systems. We define the corresponding topological invariant as the winding number of the Floquet propagator relative to the imaginary gap. To relate topology to transport, we introduce the concept of regularized dynamics of non-Hermitian chains. We establish that, under the…
Various exotic topological phases of Floquet systems have been shown to arise from crystalline symmetries. Yet, a general theory for Floquet topology that is applicable to all crystalline symmetry groups is still in need. In this work, we propose such a theory for (effectively) non-interacting Floquet crystals. We first introduce quotient winding data to classify the dynamics of the Floquet crystals with equivalent symmetry data, and then construct dynamical symmetry indicators (DSIs) to sufficiently indicate the "inherently dynamical" Floquet crystals. The DSI and quotient winding data, as we…
Time-periodic (Floquet) drive can give rise to novel symmetry breaking and topological phases of matter. Recently, we showed that a quintessential Floquet topological phase known as the anomalous Floquet-Anderson insulator is stable to noise on the timing of its Floquet drive. Here, we perturb the anomalous Floquet-Anderson insulator at a single incommensurate frequency, resulting in a quasiperiodic 2-tone drive. Our numerics indicate that a robust topological phase survives at weak noise with topological pumping that is more stable than the case of white noise. Within the topological phase, w…
We propose a versatile framework to dynamically generate Floquet higher-order topological insulators by multi-step driving of topologically trivial Hamiltonians. Two analytically solvable examples are used to illustrate this procedure to yield Floquet quadrupole and octupole insulators with zero- and/or $π$-corner modes protected by mirror symmetries. Furthermore, we introduce dynamical topological invariants from the full unitary return map and show its phase bands contain Weyl singularities whose topological charges form dynamical multipole moments in the Brillouin zone. Combining them with …
We propose a class of photonic Floquet topological insulators based on staggered helical lattices and an efficient numerical method for calculating their Floquet bandstructure. The lattices support anomalous Floquet topological insulator phases with vanishing Chern number and tunable topological transitions. At the critical point of the topological transition, the bandstructure hosts a single unpaired Dirac cone, which yields a variety of unusual transport effects: a discrete analogue of conical diffraction, weak antilocalization not limited by intervalley scattering, and suppression of Anders…
Non-Hermitian topological phases in static and periodically driven systems have attracted great attention in recent years. Finding dynamical probes for these exotic phases would be of great importance in the detection and application of their topological properties. In this work, we propose a systematic approach to dynamically characterize non-Hermitian Floquet topological phases in one-dimension with chiral symmetry. We show that the topological invariants of a chiral symmetric Floquet system can be fully determined by measuring the winding angles of its time-averaged spin textures. We furthe…
Majorana edge modes are candidate elements of topological quantum computing. In this work, we purpose a Floquet engineering approach to generate arbitrarily many non-Hermitian Majorana zero and $π$ modes at the edges of a one-dimensional topological superconductor. Focusing on a Kitaev chain with periodically kicked superconducting pairings and gain/losses in the chemical potential or nearest neighbor hopping terms, we found rich non-Hermitian Floquet topological superconducting phases, which are originated from the interplay between drivings and non-Hermitian effects. Each of the phases is ch…
In two-dimensional anomalous Floquet insulators, non-Hermitian boundary state engineering can be used to completely separate chiral boundary states from bulk bands in the quasienergy spectrum. The topological properties of such spectrally separated boundary states are no longer restricted by the strict bulk-boundary correspondence of Hermitian systems. We show that this additional topological freedom enables one to faithfully transfer the topological properties of a boundary attached to a Floquet insulator to a non-Hermitian Floquet chain obtained by physically cutting off the boundary from th…
Floquet engineering, modulating quantum systems in a time periodic way, lies at the central part for realizing novel topological dynamical states. Thanks to the Floquet engineering, various new realms on experimentally simulating topological materials have emerged. Conventional Floquet engineering, however, only applies to time periodic non-dissipative Hermitian systems, and for the quantum systems in reality, non-Hermitian process with dissipation usually occurs. So far, it remains unclear how to characterize topological phases of periodically driven non-Hermitian systems via the frequency sp…
Floquet higher-order topological insulators and superconductors (HOTI/SCs) with an order-two space-time symmetry or antisymmetry are classified. This is achieved by considering unitary loops, whose nontrivial topology leads to the anomalous Floquet topological phases, subject to a space-time symmetry/antisymmetry. By mapping these unitary loops to static Hamiltonians with an order-two crystalline symmetry/antisymmetry, one is able to obtain the $K$ groups for the unitary loops and thus complete the classification of Floquet HOTI/SCs. Interestingly, we found that for every order-two nontrivial …
Non-Hermiticity is expected to add far more physical features to the already rich Floquet topological phases of matter. Nevertheless, a systematic approach to characterize non-Hermitian Floquet topological matter is still lacking. In this work we introduce a dual scheme to characterize the topology of non-Hermitian Floquet systems in momentum space and in real space, using a piecewise quenched nonreciprocal Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model for our case studies. Under the periodic boundary condition, topological phases are characterized by a pair of experimentally accessible winding numbers that make…
Floquet phases of matter have attracted great attention due to their dynamical and topological nature that are unique to nonequilibrium settings. In this work, we introduce a generic way of taking any integer $q$th-root of the evolution operator $U$ that describes Floquet topological matter. We further apply our $q$th-rooting procedure to obtain $2^n$th- and $3^n$th-root first- and second-order non-Hermitian Floquet topological insulators (FTIs). There, we explicitly demonstrate the presence of multiple edge and corner modes at fractional quasienergies $\pm(0,1,...2^{n})π/2^{n}$ and $\pm(0,1,.…
We show that Floquet chiral topological superconductivity arises naturally in Josephson junctions made of magnetic topological insulator-superconductor sandwich structures. The Josephson phase modulation associated with an applied bias voltage across the junction drives the system into the anomalous Floquet chiral topological superconductor hosting chiral Majorana edge modes in the quasienergy spectrum, with the bulk Floquet bands carrying zero Chern numbers. The bias voltage acts as a tuning parameter enabling novel dynamical topological quantum phase transitions driving the system into a myr…
Results are presented for Floquet systems in two spatial dimensions where the Floquet driving breaks an effective time reversal symmetry. The driving protocol also induces flat bands that correspond to anomalous Floquet phases where the Chern number is zero and yet chiral edge modes exist. Analytic expressions for the edge modes, Berry curvature, and the orbital magnetization are derived for the flat bands. Results are also presented for the static Haldane model for parameters when the bands are flat. Floquet driving of the same model is shown to give rise to Chern insulators as well as anomal…
Periodically driven (Floquet) phases are attractive due to their ability to host unique physical phenomena with no static counterparts. We propose a general approach in nontrivially devising a square-root version of existing Floquet phases, applicable both in noninteracting and interacting setting. The resulting systems are found to yield richer physics that is otherwise absent in the original counterparts and is robust against parameter imperfection. These include the emergence of Floquet topological superconductors with arbitrarily many zero, $π$, and $π/2$ edge modes, as well as $4T$-period…
We study two-terminal transport through two-dimensional periodically driven systems in which all bulk Floquet eigenstates are localized by disorder. We focus on the Anomalous Floquet-Anderson Insulator (AFAI) phase, a topologically-nontrivial phase within this class, which hosts topologically protected chiral edge modes coexisting with its fully localized bulk. We show that the unique properties of the AFAI yield remarkable far-from-equilibrium transport signatures: for a large bias between leads, a quantized amount of charge is transported through the system each driving period. Upon increasi…
Periodically driven systems can host so called anomalous topological phases, in which protected boundary states coexist with topologically trivial Floquet bulk bands. We introduce an anomalous version of reflection symmetry protected topological crystalline insulators, obtained as a stack of weakly-coupled two-dimensional layers. The system has tunable and robust surface Dirac cones even though the mirror Chern numbers of the Floquet bulk bands vanish. The number of surface Dirac cones is given by a new topological invariant determined from the scattering matrix of the system. Further, we find…
After extensive investigation on the Floquet second-order topological insulator (FSOTI) in two dimension (2D), here we propose two driving schemes to systematically engineer the hierarchy of Floquet first-order topological insulator, FSOTI, and Floquet third-order topological insulator in three dimension (3D). Our driving protocols allow these Floquet phases to showcase regular $0$, anomalous $π$, and hybrid $0$-$π$-modes in a unified phase diagram, obtained for both 2D and 3D systems, while staring from the lower order topological or non-topological phases. Both the step drive and the mass ki…
Higher-order topological phases (HOTPs) are characterized by symmetry-protected bound states at the corners or hinges of the system. In this work, we reveal a momentum-space counterpart of HOTPs in time-periodic driven systems, which are demonstrated in a two-dimensional extension of the quantum double-kicked rotor. The found Floquet HOTPs are protected by chiral symmetry and characterized by a pair of topological invariants, which could take arbitrarily large integer values with the increase of kicking strengths. These topological numbers can also be measured from the chiral dynamics of wave …
Bulk-boundary correspondence is a fundamental principle for topological phases where bulk topology determines gapless boundary states. On the other hand, it has been known that corner or hinge modes in higher order topological insulators may appear due to "extrinsic" topology of the boundaries even when the bulk topological numbers are trivial. In this paper, we find that Floquet anomalous boundary states in quantum walks have similar extrinsic topological natures. In contrast to higher order topological insulators, the extrinsic topology in quantum walks is manifest even for first-order topol…
Periodically driven non-Hermitian systems can exhibit rich topological band structure and non-Hermitian skin effect, without analogs in their static or Hermitian counterparts. In this work we investigate the exceptional band-touching points in the Floquet quasi-energy bands, the topological characterization of such exceptions points and the Floquet non-Hermitian skin effect (FNHSE). Specifically, we exploit the simplicity of periodically quenched two-band systems in one dimension or two dimensions to analytically obtain the Floquet effective Hamiltonian as well as locations of the many excepti…
Topological states require the presence of extended bulk states, as usually found in the picture of energy bands and topological states bridging the bulk gaps. But in driven systems this can be circumvented, and one can get topological states coexisting with fully localized bulk states, as in the case of the anomalous Floquet-Anderson insulator. Here, we show the fingerprints of this peculiar topological phase in the transport properties and their dependence on the disorder strength, geometrical configuration (two-terminal and multiterminal setups) and details of the driving protocol.
We propose a systematic way of constructing Floquet second-order topological insulators (SOTIs) based on time-glide symmetry, a nonsymmorphic space-time symmetry that is unique in Floquet systems. In particular, we are able to show that the static enlarged Hamiltonian in the frequency domain acquires the reflection symmetry, which is inherited from the time-glide symmetry of the original system. As a consequence, one can construct a variety of time-glide symmetric Floquet SOTIs using the knowledge of static SOTIs. Moreover, the time-glide symmetry only needs to be implemented approximately in …
Periodically driven Kitaev chains are known to exhibit novel Floquet Majorana fermions and anomalous Floquet end modes. The fact that `quasienergy in Floquet systems is periodic' poses a difficulty in defining the ground state in periodically driven systems. To overcome this problem, we start with the ground state of the undriven Kitaev chain and gradually switch on the periodic driving in chemical potential over a timescale $τ$. The extent to which the single particle eigenstates of the undriven system get distributed among the Floquet states upon driving can be characterized by inverse parti…
Periodically driven systems with internal and spatial symmetries can exhibit a variety of anomalous boundary behaviors at both the zero and $π$ quasienergies despite the trivial bulk Floquet bands. These phenomena are called anomalous Floquet topology (AFT) as they are unconnected from their static counterpart, arising from the winding of the time evolution unitary rather than the bulk Floquet bands at the end of the driving period. In this paper, we systematically derive the first and inversion-symmetric second-order AFT bulk-boundary correspondence for Altland-Zirnbauer (AZ) classes BDI, D, …
Entanglement is one of the most fundamental features of quantum systems. In this work, we obtain the entanglement spectrum and entropy of Floquet noninteracting fermionic lattice models and build their connections with Floquet topological phases. Topological winding and Chern numbers are introduced to characterize the entanglement spectrum and eigenmodes. Correspondences between the spectrum and topology of entanglement Hamiltonians under periodic boundary conditions and topological edge states under open boundary conditions are further established. The theory is applied to Floquet topological…
We uncover a new family of few-body topological phases in periodically driven fermionic systems in two dimensions. These phases, which we term correlation-induced anomalous Floquet insulators (CIAFIs), are characterized by quantized contributions to the bulk magnetization from multi-particle correlations, and are classified by a family of integer-valued topological invariants. The CIAFI phases do not require many-body localization, but arise in the generic situation of k-particle localization, where the system is localized (due to disorder) for any finite number of particles up to a maximum nu…
The conventional characterization of periodically driven systems usually necessitates the time-domain information beyond Floquet bands, hence lacking universal and direct schemes of measuring Floquet topological invariants. Here we propose a unified theory based on quantum quenches to characterize generic $d$-dimensional ($d$D) Floquet topological phases, in which the topological invariants are constructed with only minimal information of the static Floquet bands. For a $d$D phase which is initially static and trivial, we introduce the quench dynamics by suddenly turning on the periodic drivin…
Anderson localization in two-dimensional topological insulators takes place via the so-called levitation and pair annihilation process. As disorder is increased, extended bulk states carrying opposite topological invariants move towards each other in energy, reducing the size of the topological gap, eventually meeting and localizing. This results in a topologically trivial Anderson insulator. Here, we introduce the anomalous levitation and pair annihilation, a process unique to periodically-driven, or Floquet systems. Due to the periodicity of the quasienergy spectrum, we find it is possible f…
Periodically-driven or Floquet systems can realize anomalous topological phenomena that do not exist in any equilibrium states of matter, whose classification and characterization require new theoretical ideas that are beyond the well-established paradigm of static topological phases. In this work, we provide a general framework to understand anomalous Floquet higher-order topological insulators (AFHOTIs), the classification of which has remained a challenging open question. In two dimensions (2D), such AFHOTIs are defined by their robust, symmetry-protected corner modes pinned at special quas…
Quantized Chern-Simons Axion Coupling in Anomalous Floquet Systems
Université Libre de Bruxelles（布鲁塞尔自由大学）；International Solvay Institutes（国际索尔维研究所）；Collège de France（法兰西公学院）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；ENS-Université PSL（巴黎高等师范学院-巴黎文理研究大学）；Sorbonne Université（索邦大学）；Centro Atómico Bariloche（巴里洛切原子能中心）；Instituto Balseiro（巴尔塞罗研究所）；Comisión Nacional de Energía Atomica (CNEA)（国家原子能委员会）；Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (UNCUYO)（门多萨国立大学）；Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología (INN-Bariloche)（纳米科学与技术研究所）；Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnicas (CONICET)（国家科学研究委员会）
We present a one-dimensional coupled ring resonator lattice exhibiting a variant of the non- Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) that we call the anomalous Floquet NHSE. Unlike existing approaches to achieving the NHSE by engineering gain and loss on different ring segments, our design uses fixed on-site gain or loss in each ring. The anomalous Floquet NHSE is marked by the existence of skin modes at every value of the Floquet quasienergy, allowing for broadband asymmetric transmission. Varying the gain/loss induces a non-Hermitian topological phase transition, reversing the localization direction of…
The valley-polarized quantum anomalous Hall (VQAH) state, which forwards a strategy for combining valleytronics and spintronics with nontrivial topology, attracts intensive interest in condensed-matter physics. So far, the explored VQAH states have still been limited to magnetic systems. Here, using the low-energy effective model and Floquet theorem, we propose a different mechanism to realize the Floquet VQAH state in nonmagnetic heterobilayers under light irradiation. We then realize this proposal via first-principles calculations in transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers, which init…
Backscattering-immune chiral modes arise along certain line defects in three-dimensional materials. In this paper, we study Floquet chiral modes along Floquet topological defects, namely, the defects come entirely from spatial modulations of periodic driving. We define a precise topological invariant that counts the number of Floquet chiral modes, which is expressed as an integral on a five-dimensional torus parameterized by $(k_x,k_y,k_z,θ,t)$. This work demonstrates the possibility of creating chiral modes in three-dimensional bulk materials by modulated driving. We hope that it will stimula…
Electronic bands featuring nontrivial bulk topological invariant manifest through robust gapless modes at the boundaries, e.g., edges and surfaces. As such this bulk-boundary correspondence is also operative in driven quantum materials. For example, a suitable periodic drive can convert a trivial insulator into a Floquet topological insulator (FTI) that accommodates nondissipative dynamic gapless modes at the interfaces with vacuum. Here we theoretically demonstrate that dislocations, ubiquitous lattice defects in crystals, can probe FTIs as well as unconventional $π$-trivial insulator in the …
We study the inelastic scattering of two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions by an inhomogeneous time-dependent driving field. As a physical realization we consider a monolayer graphene normally illuminated with a circularly polarized laser of frequency $Ω$ in a given region. The interaction Hamiltonian introduced by the laser, being periodic in time, can be treated with the Floquet method which naturally leads to a multi-channel scattering problem. We analyze planar and circular geometries of the interface separating the irradiated and non-irradiated regions and find that there is an anomalou…
Periodically driven (Floquet) systems have been under active theoretical and experimental investigations. This paper aims at a systematic study in the following aspects of Floquet systems: (i) A systematic formulation of topological invariants of Floquet systems based on the cooperation of topology and symmetries. Topological invariants are constructed for the ten symmetry classes in all spatial dimensions, for both homogeneous Floquet systems (Floquet topological insulators and superconductors) and Floquet topological defects. Meanwhile, useful representative Dirac Hamiltonians for all the sy…
A universal feature of topological insulators is that they cannot be adiabatically connected to an atomic limit, where individual lattice sites are completely decoupled. This property is intimately related to a topological obstruction to constructing a localized Wannier function from Bloch states of an insulator. Here we generalize this characterization of topological phases toward periodically driven systems. We show that nontrivial connectivity of hybrid Wannier centers in momentum space and time can characterize various types of topology in periodically driven systems, which include Floquet…
One can use light to tune certain materials, from a trivial to a topological phase. A prime example of such materials, classified as Floquet topological insulators (FTI), is epitaxial graphene. In this paper, we probe the topological phase transition of an FTI via the efficiency and work output of quantum Otto and quantum Stirling heat engines. A maximum/minimum in the efficiency or work output invariably signals the phase transition point. Further, both engines' work output and efficiency are markedly robust against the polarization direction of light.
We report the theoretical discovery and characterization of higher-order Floquet topological phases dynamically generated in a periodically driven system with mirror symmetries. We demonstrate numerically and analytically that these phases support lower-dimensional Floquet bound states, such as corner Floquet bound states at the intersection of edges of a two-dimensional system, protected by the nonequilibrium higher-order topology induced by the periodic drive. We characterize higher-order Floquet topologies of the bulk Floquet Hamiltonian using mirror-graded Floquet topological invariants. T…
In condensed matter physics, one of the major topics is to find out and classify interesting novel topological matters and phenomena. Topologically nontrivial systems can also be achieved by using periodical driving fields. On the other hand, ratchet effect can be used to collect useful work from fluctuations or realize directed transport in periodically-driven systems. Here, we promote a dimer chain by applying two mutually-perpendicular ac electric fields, and obtain an effective two-dimensional Hamiltonian in the low-frequency regime. We thereby derive quantum Floquet anomalous Hall (QFAH) …
