Simulation and detection of photonic Chern insulators in a one-dimensional circuit-QED lattice

• Main Authors: Mei, Feng, You, Jia-Bin, Nie, Wei, Fazio, Rosario, Zhu, Shi-Liang, Kwek, Leong Chuan
• Other Authors: Institute of Advanced Studies
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/81103; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/39121
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We introduce a conceptually simple and experimentally feasible method to realize and detect photonic topological Chern insulators with a one-dimensional circuit quantum electrodynamics lattice. By periodically modulating the couplings in this lattice, we show that this one-dimensional model can be mapped into a two-dimensional Chern insulator model. In addition to allowing the study of photonic Chern insulators, this approach also provides a natural platform to realize experimentally Laughlin's pumping argument. Remarkably, based on the scattering theory of topological insulators and input-output formalism, we find that both the photonic edge state and topological invariant can be unambiguously probed with a simple dissipative few-resonator circuit-QED network.