Pith. sign in

REVIEW

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2109.03354 v2 pith:7VGSE62B submitted 2021-09-07 cond-mat.quant-gas

Direct Geometric Probe of Singularities in Band Structure

classification cond-mat.quant-gas
keywords bandpointssingularitiestransportatomsblochgeometrylinear
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

The band structure of a crystal may have points where two or more bands are degenerate in energy and where the geometry of the Bloch state manifold is singular, with consequences for material and transport properties. Ultracold atoms in optical lattices have been used to characterize such points only indirectly, e.g., by detection of an Abelian Berry phase, and only at singularities with linear dispersion (Dirac points). Here, we probe band-structure singularities through the non-Abelian transformation produced by transport directly through the singular points. We prepare atoms in one Bloch band, accelerate them along a quasi-momentum trajectory that enters, turns, and then exits the singularities at linear and quadratic touching points of a honeycomb lattice. Measurements of the band populations after transport identify the winding numbers of these singularities to be 1 and 2, respectively. Our work opens the study of quadratic band touching points in ultracold-atom quantum simulators, and also provides a novel method for probing other band geometry singularities.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.