Topological physics strongly relies on prototypical lattice model with particular symmetries. We report here on a theoretical and experimental work on acoustic waveguides that is directly mapped to the one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chiral model. Starting from the continuous two dimensional wave equation we use a combination of monomadal approximation and the condition of equal length tube segments to arrive at the wanted discrete equations. It is shown that open or closed boundary conditions topological leads automatically to the existence of edge modes. We illustrate by graphical construction how the edge modes appear naturally owing to a quarter-wavelength condition and the conservation of flux. Furthermore, the transparent chirality of our system, which is ensured by the geometrical constraints allows us to study chiral disorder numerically and experimentally. Our experimental results in the audible regime demonstrate the predicted robustness of the topological edge modes.
A network model that can describe light propagation in one-dimensional ring-resonator arrays with a dimer structure is studied as a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger-type Floquet network. The model can be regarded as a Floquet system without periodic driving and exhibits quasienergy band structures of the ring propagation phase. Resulting band gaps support deterministic edge states depending on hopping S-matrices between adjacent rings. The number of edge states is one if the Zak phase is $pi$. If the Zak phase is 0, the number is either zero or two. The criterion of the latter number is given analytically in terms of the reflection matrix of the semi-infinite system. These properties are directly verified by changing S-matrix parameters and boundary condition continuously.
Charge-density waves are responsible for symmetry-breaking displacements of atoms and concomitant changes in the electronic structure. Linear response theories, in particular density-functional perturbation theory, provide a way to study the effect of displacements on both the total energy and the electronic structure based on a single ab initio calculation. In downfolding approaches, the electronic system is reduced to a smaller number of bands, allowing for the incorporation of additional correlation and environmental effects on these bands. However, the physical contents of this downfolded model and its potential limitations are not always obvious. Here, we study the potential-energy landscape and electronic structure of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, where all relevant quantities can be evaluated analytically. We compare the exact results at arbitrary displacement with diagrammatic perturbation theory both in the full model and in a downfolded effective single-band model, which gives an instructive insight into the properties of downfolding. An exact reconstruction of the potential-energy landscape is possible in a downfolded model, which requires a dynamical electron-biphonon interaction. The dispersion of the bands upon atomic displacement is also found correctly, where the downfolded model by construction only captures spectral weight in the target space. In the SSH model, the electron-phonon coupling mechanism involves exclusively hybridization between the low- and high-energy bands and this limits the computational efficiency gain of downfolded models.
In this work, we investigate some aspects of an acoustic analogue of the two-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. The system is composed of alternating cross-section tubes connected in a square network, which in the limit of narrow tubes is described by a discrete model coinciding with the two-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. This model is known to host topological edge waves, and we develop a scattering theory to analyze how these waves scatter on edge structure changes. We show that these edge waves undergo a perfect reflection when scattering on a corner, incidentally leading to a new way of constructing corner modes. It is shown that reflection is high for a broad class of edge changes such as steps or defects. We then study consequences of this high reflectivity on finite networks. Globally, it appears that each straight part of edges, separated by corners or defects, hosts localized edge modes isolated from their neighbourhood.
If a full band gap closes and then reopens when we continuously deform a periodic system while keeping its symmetry, a topological phase transition usually occurs. A common model demonstrating such a topological phase transition in condensed matter physics is the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. As well known, two distinct topological phases emerge when the intracell hopping is tuned from smaller to larger with respect to the intercell hopping in the model. The former case is topologically trivial, while the latter case is topologically non-trivial. Here, we design a 1D periodic acoustic system in exact analogy to the SSH model. The unit cell of the acoustic system is composed of two resonators and two junction tubes connecting them. We show that the topological phase transition happens in our acoustic analog when we tune the radii of the junction tubes which control the intercell and intracell hoppings. The topological phase transition is characterized by the abrupt change of the geometric Zak phase. The topological interface states between non-trivial and trivial phases of our acoustic analog are experimentally measured, and the results agree very well with the numerical values. Further, we show that topologically non-trivial phases of our acoustic analog of the SSH model can support edge states, on which the discussion is absent in previous works about topological acoustics. The edge states are robust against localized defects and perturbations.
We consider two interacting bosons in a dimerized Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) lattice. We identify a rich variety of two-body states. In particular, for open boundary conditions and moderate interactions, edge bound states (EBS) are present even for the dimerization that does not sustain single-particle edge states. Moreover, for large values of the interactions, we find a breaking of the standard bulk-boundary correspondence. Based on the mapping of two interacting particles in one dimension onto a single particle in two dimensions, we propose an experimentally realistic coupled optical fibers setup as quantum simulator of the two-body SSH model. This setup is able to highlight the localization properties of the states as well as the presence of a resonant scattering mechanism provided by a bound state that crosses the scattering continuum, revealing the closed-channel population in real time and real space.