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KFM: Fachverband Kristalline Festkörper und deren Mikrostruktur

KFM 11: Crystal Structure Defects / Real Structure / Microstructure

KFM 11.10: Talk

Thursday, March 30, 2023, 17:15–17:35, POT 51

Nonsymmorphic chiral symmetry and solitons in the Rice-Mele model — •Edward McCann — Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

The charge-density-wave (CDW) phase of the Rice-Mele model in one dimension has alternating onsite energies and constant nearest-neighbor hopping parameters. The chiral symmetry of the CDW wave phase is nonsymmorphic, resulting in a breaking of the bulk topology by an end or a texture in the alternating energies. We consider the presence of solitons (textures in position space separating two degenerate ground states) in finite systems with open boundary conditions. We identify the parameter range under which an atomically-sharp soliton in the CDW phase supports a localized state which lies within the band gap, and we calculate the expectation value of the nonsymmorphic chiral operator for this state, and the soliton electric charge [1]. Finally, we discuss other models with similar, nonsymmorphic nonspatial symmetries.

[1] R. E. J. Allen et al, Phys. Rev. B 106, 165409 (2022).