Topological pump and its plateau transitions of $N$-leg spin ladder

TL;DR

This paper investigates topological pumping in N-leg spin ladders, revealing how the Chern number and plateau transitions depend on the pump path and system parameters, with numerical and theoretical analysis of edge states.

Contribution

It introduces a topological pump framework for N-leg spin ladders, linking Chern numbers to critical points and demonstrating bulk-edge correspondence numerically.

Findings

Number of critical points equals N for N-leg ladder.

Chern number corresponds to enclosed critical points during pump.

Bulk-edge correspondence confirmed for N=2,3.

Abstract

A topological pump on an $N\textrm{-}$leg spin ladder is discussed by introducing spatial clusterization whose adiabatic limit is a set of $2N\textrm{-}$site staircase clusters. We set a pump path in the parameter space that connects two different symmetry protected topological phases. By introducing a symmetry breaking staggered magnetic field, the system is always gapped during the pump. In the topological pump {thus obtained}, the bulk Chern number is given by the number of the critical points enclosed by the pump path. Plateau transitions characterized by the Chern number are demonstrated associated with deformation of the pump path. We find that there are $N$ critical points enclosed by the pump path for the $N\textrm{-}$leg ladder. The ground state phase diagram without symmetry breaking terms is numerically investigated by using the quantized Berry phase. We also discuss the physical picture of edge states in the diagonal boundary, and numerically demonstrate the bulk-edge correspondence for $N=2,3$ cases.