Engineering topology in waveguide arrays
Abstract
The topological classification of a system depends on the discrete symmetries of its Hamiltonian. In Floquet photonic waveguide arrays, the abstract symmetries of the Altland--Zirnbauer (AZ) scheme -- chiral, particle-hole, and time-reversal (for photonics, -reversal) -- arise from structural properties of the lattice, yet a systematic correspondence has not been established. Here, we illustrate this correspondence for a simpler system of one-dimensional waveguide arrays with real coupling coefficients, showing how bipartite structure and -reflection symmetry alone determine the whole AZ class. We further demonstrate that non-bipartite networks -- lacking conventional particle-hole symmetry, chiral symmetry, and -reversal symmetry -- can nonetheless support topologically protected boundary states at quasienergy , even in one dimension. The protecting symmetry -- \textit{shifted}-particle-hole symmetry -- applies equally to higher-dimensional Floquet waveguides.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.01769,
title = {Engineering topology in waveguide arrays},
author = {Lavi K. Upreti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.01769},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
9+2 pages, 9+1 figs, Appendix