English

Bulk detection of time-dependent topological transitions in quenched chiral models

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2020-05-13 v2 Quantum Gases Optics Quantum Physics

Abstract

The topology of one-dimensional chiral systems is captured by the winding number of the Hamiltonian eigenstates. Here we show that this invariant can be read-out by measuring the mean chiral displacement of a single-particle wavefunction that is connected to a fully localized one via a unitary and translational-invariant map. Remarkably, this implies that the mean chiral displacement can detect the winding number even when the underlying Hamiltonian is quenched between different topological phases. We confirm experimentally these results in a quantum walk of structured light.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.05960,
  title  = {Bulk detection of time-dependent topological transitions in quenched chiral models},
  author = {Alessio D'Errico and Francesco Di Colandrea and Raouf Barboza and Alexandre Dauphin and Maciej Lewenstein and Pietro Massignan and Lorenzo Marrucci and Filippo Cardano},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.05960},
  year   = {2020}
}