CMSP Seminar Series @ICTP Stasi Room Thursday 18 Jan. 10:00- P. FROMHOLZ

[CM Section]

ICTP Seminar Series in Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics
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NOTE UNUSUAL TIME - 10:00 a.m.!!!!
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Thursday 18 January at 10:00 a.m.

Luigi Stasi Seminar Room, first floor, ICTP Leonardo building
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Speaker:
Pierre FROMHOLZ (Dept. de Physique, Univ.de Cergy-Pontoise, France)

Title:
"Haldane" Phases with Ultracold Fermionic Atoms in Double-Well Optical
Lattices

Abstract:
We propose to realize one-dimensional topological phases protected by 
SU(N) symmetry using alkali or alkaline-earth atoms loaded into a 
bichromatic optical lattice. We derive a realistic model for this system 
and investigate it theoretically. Depending on the parity of N, two 
different classes of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are 
stabilized at half-filling for physical parameters of the model. For 
even N, the celebrated spin-1 Haldane phase and its generalization to 
SU(N) are obtained with no local symmetry breaking. In stark contrast, 
at least for N=3, a new class of SPT phases, dubbed chiral Haldane 
phases, that spontaneously break inversion symmetry, emerge with a 
two-fold ground-state degeneracy. The latter ground states with 
open-boundary conditions are characterized by different left and right 
boundary spins which are related by conjugation. Our results show that 
topological phases are within close reach of the latest experiments on 
cold fermions in optical lattices.

arXiv:1709.10409 <https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.10409>