4D spinless topological insulator in a periodic electric circuit. Issue 8 (15th April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yu, Rui; Zhao, Y X; Schnyder, Andreas P
• Is Part Of: National science review. Volume 7:Issue 8(2020)
• Page Start: 1288
• Page End: 1295
• Publication Date: 2020-04-15
• Subjects: topological circuit -- 4D topological states -- 4D topological Hall effect -- second Chern number -- Weyl states; Science -- Periodicals; 505
• DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa065
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2095-5138

Abstract

Abstract: 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. Abstract : A 4D topological insulator is simulated on a 2D board of electric circuits, where the intrinsic classical time-reversal symmetry protects two Weyl modes with the same chirality on each boundary.