English

A topological classification of interaction-driven spin pumps

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2013-07-31 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

When adiabatically varied in time, certain one-dimensional band insulators allow for the quantized noiseless pumping of spin even in the presence of strong spin orbit scattering. These spin pumps are closely related to the quantum spin Hall system, and their properties are protected by a time-reversal restriction on the pumping cycle. In this paper we study pumps formed of one-dimensional insulators with a time-reversal restriction on the pumping cycle and a bulk energy gap which arises due to interactions. We find that the correlated gapped phase can lead to novel pumping properties. In particular, systems with dd different ground states can give rise to d+1d+1 different classes of spin pumps, including a trivial class which does not pump quantized spin and dd non-trivial classes allowing for the pumping of quantized spin /n\hbar/n on average per cycle, where 1nd1\leq n\leq d. We discuss an example of a spin pump that transfers on average spin /2 \hbar/2 without transferring charge.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1104.1516,
  title  = {A topological classification of interaction-driven spin pumps},
  author = {Dganit Meidan and Tobias Micklitz and Piet W. Brouwer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1104.1516},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T17:51:13.733Z