Floquet engineering of optical solenoids and quantized charge pumping along tailored paths in two-dimensional Chern insulators

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to create local magnetic flux in optical lattices using Floquet engineering and single-site addressing, enabling manipulation and probing of topological excitations in Chern insulators.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme combining Floquet engineering and quantum-gas microscopy to realize local magnetic flux and control topological excitations in optical lattices.

Findings

Realization of local solenoid-type magnetic fields in optical lattices.

Controlled quantized charge pumping along designed paths.

Manipulation of edge modes in topological insulators.

Abstract

The insertion of a local magnetic flux, as the one created by a thin solenoid, plays an important role in gedanken experiments of quantum Hall physics. By combining Floquet engineering of artificial magnetic fields with the ability of single-site addressing in quantum-gas microscopes, we propose a scheme for the realization of such local solenoid-type magnetic fields in optical lattices. We show that it can be employed to manipulate and probe elementary excitations of a topological Chern insulator. This includes quantized adiabatic charge pumping along tailored paths inside the bulk, as well as the controlled population of edge modes.