Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080, USA.
Nat Commun. 2016 Dec 23;7:13986. doi: 10.1038/ncomms13986.
The Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, which captures the most striking transport properties of the conductive organic polymer trans-polyacetylene, provides perhaps the most basic model system supporting topological excitations. The alternating bond pattern of polyacetylene chains is captured by the bipartite sublattice structure of the SSH model, emblematic of one-dimensional chiral symmetric topological insulators. This structure supports two distinct nontrivial topological phases, which, when interfaced with one another or with a topologically trivial phase, give rise to topologically protected, dispersionless boundary states. Here, using Rb atoms in a momentum-space lattice, we realize fully tunable condensed matter Hamiltonians, allowing us to probe the dynamics and equilibrium properties of the SSH model. We report on the experimental quantum simulation of this model and observation of the localized topological soliton state through quench dynamics, phase-sensitive injection, and adiabatic preparation.
苏-施里弗-赫格（SSH）模型捕捉了导电有机聚合物反式聚乙炔最显著的输运性质，为支持拓扑激发提供了最基本的模型系统。聚乙炔链的交替键模式由 SSH 模型的二分区子晶格结构捕获，这是一维手性对称拓扑绝缘体的典型特征。这种结构支持两个不同的非平凡拓扑相，当它们相互连接或与拓扑平庸相连接时，会产生拓扑保护的无弥散边界态。在这里，我们使用动量空间晶格中的 Rb 原子实现了完全可调的凝聚态哈密顿量，使我们能够探测 SSH 模型的动力学和平衡性质。我们报告了该模型的实验量子模拟，并通过淬火动力学、相敏注入和绝热制备观察到了局域拓扑孤子态。
