Yu Rui, Zhao Y X, Schnyder Andreas P
School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
Natl Sci Rev. 2020 Aug;7(8):1288-1295. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa065. Epub 2020 Apr 15.
According to the mathematical classification of topological band structures, there exist a number of fascinating topological states in dimensions larger than three with exotic boundary phenomena and interesting topological responses. While these topological states are not accessible in condensed matter systems, recent works have shown that synthetic systems, such as photonic crystals or electric circuits, can realize higher-dimensional band structures. Here, we argue that, because of its symmetry properties, the 4D spinless topological insulator is particularly well suited for implementation in these synthetic systems. We explicitly construct a 2D electric circuit lattice, whose resonance frequency spectrum simulates the 4D spinless topological insulator. We perform detailed numerical calculations of the circuit lattice and show that the resonance frequency spectrum exhibits pairs of 3D Weyl boundary states, a hallmark of the nontrivial topology. These pairs of 3D Weyl states with the same chirality are protected by classical time-reversal symmetry that squares to +1, which is inherent in the proposed circuit lattice. We also discuss how the simulated 4D topological band structure can be observed in experiments.
根据拓扑能带结构的数学分类,在三维以上的维度中存在许多迷人的拓扑态,它们具有奇异的边界现象和有趣的拓扑响应。虽然这些拓扑态在凝聚态物质系统中无法实现,但最近的研究表明,诸如光子晶体或电路等人工合成系统可以实现高维能带结构。在此,我们认为,由于其对称性,四维无自旋拓扑绝缘体特别适合在这些人工合成系统中实现。我们明确构建了一个二维电路晶格,其共振频谱模拟了四维无自旋拓扑绝缘体。我们对该电路晶格进行了详细的数值计算,并表明共振频谱呈现出三维外尔边界态对,这是非平凡拓扑的一个标志。这些具有相同手性的三维外尔态对由平方为 +1 的经典时间反演对称性保护,这是所提出的电路晶格所固有的。我们还讨论了如何在实验中观测到模拟的四维拓扑能带结构。