No Arabic abstract
The boundary charge that accumulates at the edge of a one-dimensional single-channel insulator is known to possess the universal property, that its change under a lattice shift towards the edge by one site is given by the sum of the average bulk electronic density and a topologically invariant contribution, restricted to the values $0$ and $-1$ [Phys. Rev. B 101, 165304 (2020)]. This quantized contribution is associated with particle-hole duality, ensures charge conservation and fixes the mod(1) ambiguity appearing in the Modern Theory of Polarization. In the present work we generalize the above-mentioned single-channel results to the multichannel case by employing the technique of boundary Greens functions. We show that the topological invariant associated with the change in boundary charge under a lattice shift in multichannel models can be expressed as a winding number of a certain combination of components of bulk Greens functions as function of the complex frequency, as it encircles the section of the energy axis that corresponds to the occupied part of the spectrum. We observe that this winding number is restricted to values ranging from $-N_c$ to $0$, where $N_c$ is the number of channels (orbitals) per site. Furthermore, we consider translationally invariant one-dimensional multichannel models with an impurity and introduce topological indices which correspond to the quantized charge that accumulates around said impurity. These invariants are again given in terms of winding numbers of combinations of components of bulk Greens functions. Through this construction we provide a rigorous mathematical proof of the so called nearsightedness principle formulated by W. Kohn [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3168 (1996)] for noninteracting multichannel lattice models.
We study single-channel continuum models of one-dimensional insulators induced by periodic potential modulations which are either terminated by a hard wall (the boundary model) or feature a single region of dislocations and/or impurity potentials breaking translational invariance (the interface model). We investigate the universal properties of excess charges accumulated near the boundary and the interface, respectively. We find a rigorous analytic proof for the earlier observed linear dependence of the boundary charge on the phase of the periodic potential modulation as well as extend these results to the interface model. The linear dependence on the phase shows a universal value for the slope, and is intersected by discontinuous jumps by plus or minus one electron charge at the phase points where localized states enter or leave a band of extended states. Both contributions add up such that the periodicity of the excess charge in the phase over a $2pi$-cycle is maintained. While in the boundary model this property is usually associated with the bulk-boundary correspondence, in the interface model a correspondence of scattering state and localized state contributions to the total interface charge is unveiled on the basis of the so-called nearsightedness principle.
We study fractional boundary charges (FBCs) for two classes of strongly interacting systems. First, we study strongly interacting nanowires subjected to a periodic potential with a period that is a rational fraction of the Fermi wavelength. For sufficiently strong interactions, the periodic potential leads to the opening of a charge density wave gap at the Fermi level. The FBC then depends linearly on the phase offset of the potential with a quantized slope determined by the period. Furthermore, different possible values for the FBC at a fixed phase offset label different degenerate ground states of the system that cannot be connected adiabatically. Next, we turn to the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) at odd filling factors $ u=1/(2l+1)$, where $l$ is an integer. For a Corbino disk threaded by an external flux, we find that the FBC depends linearly on the flux with a quantized slope that is determined by the filling factor. Again, the FBC has $2l+1$ different branches that cannot be connected adiabatically, reflecting the $(2l+1)$-fold degeneracy of the ground state. These results allow for several promising and strikingly simple ways to probe strongly interacting phases via boundary charge measurements.
We measure the transmission through asymmetric and reflection-symmetric chaotic microwave cavities in dependence of the number of attached wave guides. Ferrite cylinders are placed inside the cavities to break time-reversal symmetry. The phase-breaking properties of the ferrite and its range of applicability are discussed in detail. Random matrix theory predictions for the distribution of transmission coefficients T and their energy derivative dT/dE are extended to account for absorption. Using the absorption strength as a fitting parameter, we find good agreement between universal transmission fluctuations predicted by theory and the experimental data.
We demonstrate that a large class of one-dimensional quantum and classical exchange models can be described by the same type of graphs, namely Cayley graphs of the permutation group. Their well-studied spectral properties allow us to derive crucial information about those models of fundamental importance in both classical and quantum physics, and to completely characterize their algebraic structure. Notably, we prove that the spectral gap can be obtained in polynomial computational time, which has strong implications in the context of adiabatic quantum computing with quantum spin-chains. This quantity also characterizes the rate to stationarity of some important classical random processes such as interchange and exclusion processes. Reciprocally, we use results derived from the celebrated Bethe ansatz to obtain original mathematical results about these graphs in the unweighted case. We also discuss extensions of this unifying framework to other systems, such as asymmetric exclusion processes -- a paradigmatic model in non-equilibrium physics, or the more exotic non-Hermitian quantum systems.
Emerging new concepts, such as magnetic charge dynamics in two-dimensional magnetic material, can provide novel mechanism for spin based electrical transport at macroscopic length. In artificial spin ice of single domain elements, magnetic charges relaxation can create an efficient electrical pathway for conduction by generating fluctuations in local magnetic field that couple with conduction electrons spins. In a first demonstration, we show that the electrical conductivity is propelled by more than an order of magnitude at room temperature due to magnetic charge defects sub-picosecond relaxation in artificial magnetic honeycomb lattice. The direct evidence to the proposed electrical conduction mechanism in two-dimensional frustrated magnet points to the untapped potential for spintronic applications in this system.