Dissipation-induced Nonlinear Topological Gear Switching

TL;DR

The paper introduces a dissipation-induced topological gear switching mechanism that enables quantized soliton transport to be controlled by pumping speed, revealing a non-equilibrium nonlinear topological phenomenon.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel non-equilibrium topological effect where quantized transport is controlled by aperiodic nonlinearities without requiring a time-periodic Hamiltonian.

Findings

Quantized soliton transport can be switched on and off via adiabatic pumping speed.

Nonlinear topological transport can be induced from linear to nonlinear regimes.

The phenomenon is captured by an effective conservative model with aperiodically varying nonlinearity.

Abstract

Nonlinear interaction enables topological phenomena impossible in linear systems. A paradigm is nonlinear Thouless pump, where the transport of solitons can be topologically quantized even when band occupation is nonuniform. Such nonlinear quantization traditionally requires a time-periodic Hamiltonian with static nonlinearity and, much as in the linear case, is inherently independent of pumping speed. Instead, we demonstrate a dissipation-induced topological gear switching, where quantized soliton transport can be switched on and off via the adiabatic pumping speed itself. This phenomenon has no counterpart in prior conservative nonlinear pumps, nor in linear non-Hermitian pumps. Crucially, quantization here no longer requires a time-periodic nonlinear Hamiltonian; it stems from a genuinely non-equilibrium mechanism captured by an effective conservative model whose \textit{nonlinearity varies aperiodically in time}. Remarkably, a quantized nonlinear transport can be induced even when this nonlinear aperiodic driving is such that the system is pumped from the linear to nonlinear regimes. Our results open a route toward nonequilibrium nonlinear topological matter, where topological effect is dynamically reconfigurable via time-varying nonlinearities, with experimental implications for photonic, atomic, or superconducting platforms and beyond.