Topological insulator and particle pumping in a one-dimensional shaken optical lattice

We propose a simple method to simulate and detect topological insulators with cold atoms trapped in a one-dimensional bichromatic optical lattice subjected to a time-periodic modulation. The tight-binding form of this shaken system is equivalent to the periodically driven Aubry-Andre model. We demon...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mei, Feng, You, Jia-Bin, Zhang, Dan-Wei, Yang, X. C., Fazio, R., Zhu, Shi-Liang, Kwek, L. C.
Other Authors: Institute of Advanced Studies
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/104379
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/24690
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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Summary:We propose a simple method to simulate and detect topological insulators with cold atoms trapped in a one-dimensional bichromatic optical lattice subjected to a time-periodic modulation. The tight-binding form of this shaken system is equivalent to the periodically driven Aubry-Andre model. We demonstrate that this model can be mapped into a two-dimensional Chern insulator model, whose energy spectrum hosts a topological phase within an experimentally accessible parameter regime. By tuning the laser phase adiabatically, such one-dimensional system constitutes a natural platform to realize topological particle pumping. We show that the Chern number characterizing the topological features of this system can be measured by detecting the density shift after one cycle of pumping.