Estimating bulk and edge topological indices in finite open chiral chains

TL;DR

This paper introduces a formalism to accurately define and compute bulk and edge topological indices in finite open chiral chains, demonstrating their convergence to quantized values and their equivalence at finite sizes, applicable to disordered systems.

Contribution

It extends the definition of topological indices to finite systems with open boundaries and provides a physical interpretation, applicable to non-homogeneous chains like the SSH model.

Findings

Indices converge exponentially fast to integers with increasing system size

Bulk and edge indices coincide at finite size

Method applies to disordered and defect configurations

Abstract

We develop a formalism to extend, simultaneously, the usual definition of bulk and edge indices from topological insulators to the case of a finite sample with open boundary conditions, and provide a physical interpretation of these quantities. We then show that they converge exponentially fast to an integer value when we increase the system size, and also that bulk and edge quantities coincide at finite size. The theorem applies to any non-homogeneous system such as disordered or defect configurations. We focus on one-dimensional chains with chiral symmetry, such as the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, but the proof actually only requires the Hamiltonian to be short-range and with a spectral gap in the bulk. The definition of bulk and edge indices relies on a finite-size version of the switch-function formalism where the Fermi projector is smoothed in energy using a carefully chosen regularization parameter.