Dynamical detection of a topological phase transition in one-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gases

Published

November 4, 2015

Author(s)

Ian B. Spielman, Setiawan Wenming, Krishnendu Sengupta, Jay Sau

Abstract

We demonstrate that non-equilibrium dynamics provides a direct means of detecting the topological phase transition (TPT) between conventional and topological superfluid (SF) phases in one-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gases with attractive interactions. To date, no cold atom experiment has realized a topological SF, because of loss or heating processes. In the alkali fermions, off-resonant light scattering dominates these processes, therefore, we minimize their impact by rapidly quenching in and out of the topological SF phase. This quench excites Bogoliubov quasiparticles in the final phase (a conventional SF), the distribution of which carries signatures of the TPT. We calculate the resulting spin-resolved momentum distribution by self-consistently solving the time-dependent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. They exhibit Kibble-Zurek scaling and St\"{u}ckelberg oscillations characteristic of the TPT. We discuss parameter regimes where the TPT is experimentally accessible.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.190401

Keywords

Artificial gauge field, Bose Einstein Condensate, Hofstadter

Citation

Spielman, I. , Wenming, S. , Sengupta, K. and Sau, J. (2015), Dynamical detection of a topological phase transition in one-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gases, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.190401 (Accessed October 25, 2025)