Topological Insulators and Metals in Atomic Optical Lattices

Abstract

We propose the realization of topological quantum states with cold atoms trapped in an optical lattice. We discuss an experimental setup that generates a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice in the presence of a light-induced periodic vector potential, which represents a realization of the Haldane model with cold atoms. We determine theoretically the conditions necessary for observing the topological states and show that two of the key conditions are: 1) the realization of sharp boundaries and 2) the minimization of any smoothly varying component of the confining potential. We argue that, unlike their condensed matter counterparts, cold atom topological quantum states can be i) "seen", by mapping out the characteristic chiral edge states, and ii) controlled, by controlling the periodic vector potential and the properties of the confining potential.

4+ pages, 5 color figures

References in corpus (13)

• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Topological Insulators with Inversion Symmetry
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• Spin Hall effects for cold atoms in a light induced gauge potential
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• Non-equilibrium spin dynamics in a trapped Fermi gas with effective spin-orbit interaction
• Trapped Fermi Gases in Rotating Optical Lattices: Realization and Detection of the Topological Hofstadter Insulator
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• Edge Transport in 2D Cold Atom Optical Lattices
• Surface states, Friedel oscillations, and spin accumulation in p-doped semiconductors

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Exploring Topological Phases With Quantum Walks
• Realistic Time-Reversal Invariant Topological Insulators With Neutral Atoms
• Engineering Time-Reversal Invariant Topological Insulators With Ultra-Cold Atoms
• Topological Insulators on the Lieb and Perovskite Lattices
• Wilson Fermions and Axion Electrodynamics in Optical Lattices
• Chiral Rashba spin textures in ultra-cold Fermi gases
• Band topology and quantum spin Hall effect in bilayer graphene
• Bogoliubov theory of interacting bosons on a lattice in a synthetic magnetic field
• Honeycomb optical lattices with harmonic confinement