English

Topological swing in Bloch oscillations

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2020-11-06 v2 Quantum Physics

Abstract

We report new oscillations of wavepackets in quantum walks subjected to electric fields, that decorate the usual Bloch-Zener oscillations of insulators. The number of turning points (or sub-oscillations) within one Bloch period of these oscillations is found to be governed by the winding of the quasienergy spectrum. Thus, this provides a new physical manifestation of a topological property of periodically driven systems that can be probed experimentally. Our model, based on an oriented scattering network, is readily implementable in photonic and cold atomic setups.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.14261,
  title  = {Topological swing in Bloch oscillations},
  author = {L. K. Upreti and C. Evain and S. Randoux and P. Suret and A. Amo and P. Delplace},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.14261},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T15:11:13.746Z