Rice-Mele model with topological solitons in an optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper explores how ultra-cold fermions in a shaken optical lattice can realize the Rice-Mele model, leading to topologically protected localized modes with fractional particle numbers, and discusses their experimental detection.

Contribution

It demonstrates the realization of the Rice-Mele model with controlled defects in optical lattices and predicts topologically protected solitons with fractional charge.

Findings

Controlled defects induce localized topological modes.

Topological solitons carry fractional particle number.

Experimental signatures for detection are proposed.

Abstract

Attractive ultra-cold fermions trapped in a one-dimensional periodically shaken opticla lattices are considered. For an appropriate resonant shaking the system realizes paradigmatic dimes physics described by Rice-Mele model. The important feature of our system is the possible presence of controlled defects. They result in the creation of topologically protected loclaized modes carrying fractional particle number. Their possible experimental signatures are discussed.