Solitons and quantization in nonlinear topological systems

ORAL  · Invited

Abstract

The description of the topological properties of condensed matter, photonic, or other wave systems is most natural in the linear (i.e., non-interacting) domain, where invariants such as the Chern number can be described as integrals over momentum space. Here we discuss several experiments on nonlinear topological systems, including the observation of optical spatial solitons therein, as well as the integer and fractional quantization of soliton motion in Thouless pumps.

*We acknowledge support from the ONR Young Investigator programme under award number N00014-18-1-2595, the ONR-MURI programme N00014-20-1-2325, the Packard Foundation fellowship under number 2017-66821, as well as the support of the Verne M. Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship at the Pennsylvania State University.

–

Publication: Mukherjee, S. & Rechtsman, M. C. Observation of Floquet solitons in a topological bandgap. Science 368, 856–859 (2020).
Mukherjee, S. & Rechtsman, M. C. Observation of unidirectional soliton-like edge states in nonlinear Floquet topological insulators. Physical Review X, in press, arXiv:2010.11359 [cond-mat, physics:nlin, physics:physics] (2020).
Jürgensen, M., Mukherjee, S. & Rechtsman, M. C. Quantized nonlinear Thouless pumping. Nature 596, 63–67 (2021).

Presenters

  • Mikael C Rechtsman

    • Pennsylvania State University

Authors

  • Mikael C Rechtsman

    • Pennsylvania State University

  • Marius Jürgensen

    • Penn State

  • Sebabrata Mukherjee

    • Pennsylvania State University