Chiral Floquet systems and quantum walks at half period


الملخص بالإنكليزية

We classify periodically driven quantum systems on a one-dimensional lattice, where the driving process is local and subject to a chiral symmetry condition. The analysis is in terms of the unitary operator at a half-period and also covers systems in which this operator is implemented directly, and does not necessarily arise from a continuous time evolution. The full-period evolution operator is called a quantum walk, and starting the period at half time, which is called choosing another timeframe, leads to a second quantum walk. We assume that these walks have gaps at the spectral points $pm1$, up to at most finite dimensional eigenspaces. Walks with these gap properties have been completely classified by triples of integer indices (arXiv:1611.04439). These indices, taken for both timeframes, thus become classifying for half-step operators. In addition a further index quantity is required to classify the half step operators, which decides whether a continuous local driving process exists. In total, this amounts to a classification by five independent indices. We show how to compute these as Fredholm indices of certain chiral block operators, show the completeness of the classification, and clarify the relations to the two sets of walk indices. Within this theory we prove bulk-edge correspondence, where second timeframe allows to distinguish between symmetry protected edge states at $+1$ and $-1$ which is not possible with only one timeframe. We thus resolve an apparent discrepancy between our above mentioned index classification for walks, and indices defined (arXiv:1208.2143). The discrepancy turns out to be one of different definitions of the term `quantum walk.

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