| Title |
Measuring topology in a laser-coupled honeycomb lattice: from Chern insulators to topological semi-metals / |
| Authors |
Goldman, Nathan ; Anisimovas, Egidijus ; Gerbier, Fabrice ; Öhberg, Patrik ; Spielman, I.B ; Juzeliūnas, Gediminas |
| DOI |
10.1088/1367-2630/15/1/013025 |
| Full Text |
|
| Is Part of |
New journal of physics.. Bristol : Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd. 2013, Vol. 15, Art. no. 013025 [p. 1-31].. ISSN 1367-2630 |
| Abstract [eng] |
Ultracold fermions trapped in a honeycomb optical lattice constitute a versatile setup to experimentally realize the Haldane model (1988 Phys. Rev. Lett. 61 2015). In this system, a non-uniform synthetic magnetic flux can be engineered through laser-induced methods, explicitly breaking time-reversal symmetry. This potentially opens a bulk gap in the energy spectrum, which is associated with a non-trivial topological order, i.e. a non-zero Chern number. In this paper, we consider the possibility of producing and identifying such a robust Chern insulator in the laser-coupled honeycomb lattice. We explore a large parameter space spanned by experimentally controllable parameters and obtain a variety of phase diagrams, clearly identifying the accessible topologically non-trivial regimes. We discuss the signatures of Chern insulators in cold-atom systems, considering available detection methods. We also highlight the existence of topological semi-metals in this system, which are gapless phases characterized by non-zero winding numbers, not present in Haldane's original model. |
| Published |
Bristol : Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd |
| Type |
Journal article |
| Language |
English |
| Publication date |
2013 |
