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Simulating Floquet topological phases in static systems
by Selma Franca, Fabian Hassler, Ion Cosma Fulga
This Submission thread is now published as
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Ion Cosma Fulga · Fabian Hassler |
| Submission information | |
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| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08217v3 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | 2021-03-31 |
| Date submitted: | 2021-02-09 12:59 |
| Submitted by: | Fulga, Ion Cosma |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Theoretical |
Abstract
We show that scattering from the boundary of static, higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) can be used to simulate the behavior of (time-periodic) Floquet topological insulators. We consider D-dimensional HOTIs with gapless corner states which are weakly probed by external waves in a scattering setup. We find that the unitary reflection matrix describing back-scattering from the boundary of the HOTI is topologically equivalent to a (D-1)-dimensional nontrivial Floquet operator. To characterize the topology of the reflection matrix, we introduce the concept of `nested' scattering matrices. Our results provide a route to engineer topological Floquet systems in the lab without the need for external driving. As benefit, the topological system does not to suffer from decoherence and heating.
Author comments upon resubmission
Thank you for handling our manuscript and for sending us the referee reports.
For ease of reading, we have prepared a pdf reply, which can be accessed at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xpait2dc0u7fa9/reply_09_02_2021.pdf?dl=0
Sincerely,
Selma Franca, Fabian Hassler, and Ion Cosma Fulga
List of changes
See our reply pdf for a detailed list of changes.
Published as SciPost Phys. Core 4, 007 (2021)
Reports on this Submission
Report #1 by Anonymous (Referee 2) on 2021-2-24 (Invited Report)
- Cite as: Anonymous, Report on arXiv:2001.08217v3, delivered 2021-02-24, doi: 10.21468/SciPost.Report.2606
Report
Following the comments given in the previous submission, the authors included a more detailed general description of their dimensional reduction procedure and compared it with another competing approach.
This is clearly an improvement from the previous manuscript hence I now vote to accept.
Regarding the discussion around the importance of simulating non-interacting physics, my opinion stayed as is.
Anonymous on 2021-03-23 [id 1328]
Following the Referee reports and the comments on the previous version of the manucript, the authors have made modfications to the manuscript, which I think has improved it quite a lot. In particular, the appendices on dimensional reduction and the fictitious time-evolution operator go a long way in improving the paper.
I find the statement of the authors' about a response (such as in frequency-dependence of spectral functions) unconvincing. Even if the the 'invariant' is a pi phase difference in the unitary reflection matrix, can it not be engineered into a signature of the topology such as in 4pi Josephson junctions?
The authors make several claims of meta-metarial realization of their protocol; however I do not think it is substantiated well. I understand that this is a theoretical paper and the scope for a full experimental proposal is limited.
The concern about the significance of the results stays unchanged.
Despite these concerns, with some reservations, I think the paper can be considered for SciPost Physics Core.
Jian-Hua Jiang on 2021-03-11 [id 1296]
This is definitely an elegant theory that connects two realms of topological physics: the Hermitian systems and the unitary systems. The mapping looks interesting and encouraging. I am wondering how such a connection depends microscopic details: for instance, the size of the HOTI, the couplings between the waveguides and the HOTI, the band gap of the HOTI. In addition, there are various 2D HOTIs, how do they map to 1D Floquet topological insulators in various phases? All these aspects are important before the phenomena become reality in experiments.
Author: Ion Cosma Fulga on 2021-04-15 [id 1364]
(in reply to Jian-Hua Jiang on 2021-03-11 [id 1296])Thank you very much for your comment! We have replied to it in the attached pdf.
Attachment:
reply.pdf
Ion Cosma Fulga on 2021-02-09 [id 1219]
Following the Editor's suggestion, we upload here the pdf of our resubmission letter.
Attachment:
reply_09_02_2021.pdf