Dynamical Buildup of a Quantized Hall Response from Nontopological States

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Ying Hu - , Austrian Academy of Sciences (Author)
  • Peter Zoller - , Austrian Academy of Sciences, University of Innsbruck (Author)
  • Jan Carl Budich - , Austrian Academy of Sciences, University of Innsbruck (Author)

Abstract

We consider a two-dimensional system initialized in a topologically trivial state before its Hamiltonian is ramped through a phase transition into a Chern insulator regime. This scenario is motivated by current experiments with ultracold atomic gases aimed at realizing time-dependent dynamics in topological insulators. Our main findings are twofold. First, considering coherent dynamics, the nonequilibrium Hall response is found to approach a topologically quantized time-averaged value in the limit of slow but nonadiabatic parameter ramps, even though the Chern number of the state remains trivial. Second, adding dephasing, the destruction of quantum coherence is found to stabilize this Hall response, while the Chern number generically becomes undefined. We provide a geometric picture of this phenomenology in terms of the time-dependent Berry curvature.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number126803
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume117
Issue number12
Publication statusPublished - 16 Sept 2016
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

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