Observation of topological gravity-capillary waves in a water wave crystal

Abstract

The discovery of topological phases of matter, initially driven by theoretical advances in quantum condensed matter physics, has been recently extended to classical wave systems, reaching out to a wealth of novel potential applications in signal manipulation and energy concentration. Despite the fact that many realistic wave media (metals at optical frequencies, polymers at ultrasonic frequencies) are inherently dispersive, topological wave transport in photonic and phononic crystals has so far been limited to ideal situations and proof-of-concept experiments involving dispersionless media. Here, we report the first experimental demonstration of topological edge states in a classical water wave system supporting highly dispersive wave propagation, in the intermediate regime of gravity-capillary waves. We use a stochastic method to rigorously take into account the inherent dispersion and devise a water wave crystal insulator supporting valley-selective transport at topological domain walls. Our measurements, performed with a high-speed camera under stroboscopic illumination, unambiguously demonstrate the possibility of valley-locked transport of water waves.

arXiv comment4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Topological waves guided by a glide-reflection symmetric crystal interface
• Experimental observations of topologically guided water waves within non-hexagonal structures
• Acoustic surface modes on metasurfaces with embedded next-nearest neighbor coupling
• Topologically invisible defects in chiral mirror lattices
• Simulating Floquet topological phases in static systems
• Topological reflection matrix
• Metamaterials and Fluid Flows