Topological reflection matrix
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
While periodically driven phases offer a unique insight into nonequilibrium topology that is richer than its static counterpart, their experimental realization is often hindered by ubiquitous decoherence effects. Recently, we have proposed a decoherence-free approach of realizing these Floquet phases. The central insight is that the reflection matrix, being unitary for a bulk insulator, plays the role of a Floquet time-evolution operator. We have shown that reflection processes off the boundaries of systems supporting higher-order topological phases (HOTPs) simulate nontrivial Floquet phases. So far, this method was shown to work for one-dimensional Floquet topological phases protected by local symmetries. Here, we extend the range of applicability by studying reflection off three-dimensional HOTPs with corner and hinge modes. We show that the reflection processes can simulate both first-order and second-order Floquet phases, protected by a combination of local and spatial symmetries. For every phase, we discuss appropriate topological invariants calculated with the nested scattering matrix method.
Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 155121 |
| Journal | Physical Review B |
| Volume | 105 |
| Issue number | 15 |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Apr 2022 |
| Peer-reviewed | Yes |