Nonlinear control of photonic higher-order topological bound states in the continuum

Higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) are recently discovered topological phases, possessing symmetry-protected corner states with fractional charges. An unexpected connection between these states and the seemingly unrelated phenomenon of bound states in the continuum (BICs) was recently unveiled. When nonlinearity is added to the HOTI system, a number of fundamentally important questions arise. For example, how does nonlinearity couple higher-order topological BICs with the rest of the system, including continuum states? In fact, thus far BICs in nonlinear HOTIs have remained unexplored. Here we unveil the interplay of nonlinearity, higher-order topology, and BICs in a photonic platform. We observe topological corner states that are also BICs in a laser-written second-order topological lattice and further demonstrate their nonlinear coupling with edge (but not bulk) modes under the proper action of both self-focusing and defocusing nonlinearities. Theoretically, we calculate the eigenvalue spectrum and analog of the Zak phase in the nonlinear regime, illustrating that a topological BIC can be actively tuned by nonlinearity in such a photonic HOTI. Our studies are applicable to other nonlinear HOTI systems, with promising applications in emerging topology-driven devices.

Anomalous and normal dislocation modes in Floquet topological insulators

Electronic bands featuring nontrivial bulk topological invariant manifest through robust gapless modes at the boundaries, e.g., edges and surfaces. As such this bulk-boundary correspondence is also operative in driven quantum materials. For example, a suitable periodic drive can convert a trivial insulator into a Floquet topological insulator (FTI) that accommodates nondissipative dynamic gapless modes at the interfaces with vacuum. Here we theoretically demonstrate that dislocations, ubiquitous lattice defects in crystals, can probe FTIs as well as unconventional π-trivial insulator in the bulk of driven quantum systems by supporting normal and anomalous modes, localized near the defect core. Respectively, normal and anomalous dislocation modes reside at the Floquet zone center and boundaries. We exemplify these outcomes specifically for two-dimensional (2D) Floquet Chern insulator and px + ipy superconductor, where the dislocation modes are respectively constituted by charged and neutral Majorana fermions. Our findings should be, therefore, instrumental in probing Floquet topological phases in the state-of-the-art experiments in driven quantum crystals, cold atomic setups, and photonic and phononic metamaterials through bulk topological lattice defects.

Vortex states in an acoustic Weyl crystal with a topological lattice defect

Crystalline materials can host topological lattice defects that are robust against local deformations, and such defects can interact in interesting ways with the topological features of the underlying band structure. We design and implement a three dimensional acoustic Weyl metamaterial hosting robust modes bound to a one-dimensional topological lattice defect. The modes are related to topological features of the bulk bands, and carry nonzero orbital angular momentum locked to the direction of propagation. They span a range of axial wavenumbers defined by the projections of two bulk Weyl points to a one-dimensional subspace, in a manner analogous to the formation of Fermi arc surface states. We use acoustic experiments to probe their dispersion relation, orbital angular momentum locked waveguiding, and ability to emit acoustic vortices into free space. These results point to new possibilities for creating and exploiting topological modes in three-dimensional structures through the interplay between band topology in momentum space and topological lattice defects in real space.

Bulk-boundary-defect correspondence at disclinations in rotation-symmetric topological insulators and superconductors

We study a link between the ground-state topology and the topology of the lattice via the presence of anomalous states at disclinations -- topological lattice defects that violate a rotation symmetry only locally. We first show the existence of anomalous disclination states, such as Majorana zero-modes or helical electronic states, in second-order topological phases by means of Volterra processes. Using the framework of topological crystals to construct d-dimensional crystalline topological phases with rotation and translation symmetry, we then identify all contributions to (d-2)-dimensional anomalous disclination states from weak and first-order topological phases. We perform this procedure for all Cartan symmetry classes of topological insulators and superconductors in two and three dimensions and determine whether the correspondence between bulk topology, boundary signatures, and disclination anomaly is unique.

A few remarks on bounded homomorphisms acting on topological lattice groups and topological rings

Suppose G is a locally solid lattice group. It is known that there are non-equivalent classes of bounded homomorphisms on G which have topological structures. In this paper, our attempt is to assign lattice structures on them. More precisely, we use of a version of the remarkable Riesz-Kantorovich formulae and Fatou property for bounded order bounded homomorphisms to allocate the desired structures. Moreover, we show that unbounded convergence on a locally solid lattice group is topological and we investigate some applications of it. Also, some necessary and sufficient conditions for completeness of different types of bounded group homomorphisms between topological rings have been obtained, as well.