Topological transport in a spin-orbit coupled bosonic Mott insulator

TL;DR

This paper explores how interactions in a spin-orbit coupled bosonic Mott insulator can induce topological transport phenomena, including anomalous dynamics and potential Hall conductivity, with implications for experimental detection.

Contribution

It demonstrates that interactions can produce topological effects in a bosonic Mott insulator with abelian spin-orbit coupling, providing theoretical predictions for experimental signatures.

Findings

Interactions induce anomalous quasi-particle dynamics.

Potential for integer Hall conductivity in the ground state.

Computations of quasiparticle dispersions and Berry curvature.

Abstract

We investigate topological transport in a spin-orbit coupled bosonic Mott insulator. We show that interactions can lead to anomalous quasi-particle dynamics even when the spin-orbit coupling is abelian. To illustrate the latter, we consider the spin-orbit coupling realized in the experiment of Lin \textit{et al}. [Nature (London) \textbf{471}, 83 (2011)]. For this spin-orbit coupling, we compute the quasiparticle dispersions and spectral weights, the interaction-induced momentum space Berry curvature, and the momentum space distribution of spin density, and propose experimental signatures. Furthermore, we find that in our approximation for the single-particle propagator, the ground state can in principle support an integer Hall conductivity if the sum of the Chern numbers of the hole bands is nonzero.