G. Engelhardt

Topological Instabilities in ac-Driven Bosonic Systems.

Under nonequilibrium conditions, bosonic modes can become dynamically unstable with an exponentially growing occupation. On the other hand, topological band structures give rise to symmetry protected midgap states. In this Letter, we investigate the interplay of instability and topology. Thereby, we establish a general relation between topology and instability under ac driving. We apply our findings to create dynamical instabilities which are strongly localized at the boundaries of a finite-size system. As these localized instabilities are protected by symmetry, they can be considered as topological instabilities.

Excited-state quantum phase transitions and periodic dynamics

We investigate signatures of the excited-state quantum phase transition in the periodic dynamics of the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model and the Tavis-Cummings model. In the thermodynamic limit, expectation values of observables in eigenstates of the system can be calculated using classical trajectories. Motivated by this, we suggest a method based on the time evolution of the finite-size system, to find singularities in observables, which arise due to the excited-state quantum phase transition.

Topological Bogoliubov excitations in inversion-symmetric systems of interacting bosons

On top of the mean-field analysis of a Bose-Einstein condensate, one typically applies the Bogoliubov theory to analyze quantum fluctuations of the excited modes. Therefore, one has to diagonalize the Bogoliubov Hamiltonian in a symplectic manner. In our article we investigate the topology of these Bogoliubov excitations in inversion-invariant systems of interacting bosons. We analyze how the condensate influences the topology of the Bogoliubov excitations. Analogously to the fermionic case, here we establish a symplectic extension of the polarization characterizing the topology of the Bogoliubov excitations and link it to the eigenvalues of the inversion operator at the inversion-invariant momenta. We also demonstrate an instructive but experimentally feasible example that this quantity is also related to edge states in the excitation spectrum.

Topologically Enforced Bifurcations in Superconducting Circuits

The relationship of topological insulators and superconductors and the field of nonlinear dynamics is widely unexplored. To address this subject, we adopt the linear coupling geometry of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, a paradigmatic example for a topological insulator, and render it nonlinearly in the context of superconducting circuits. As a consequence, the system exhibits topologically enforced bifurcations as a function of the topological control parameter, which finally gives rise to chaotic dynamics, separating phases that exhibit clear topological features.

ac-Driven quantum phase transition in the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model.

We establish a set of nonequilibrium quantum phase transitions in the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model under monochromatic modulation of the interparticle interaction. We show that the external driving induces a rich phase diagram that characterizes the multistability in the system. Interestingly, the number of stable configurations can be tuned by increasing the amplitude of the driving field. Furthermore, by studying the quantum evolution, we demonstrate that the system exhibits a set of quantum phases that correspond to dynamically stabilized states.

Maxwell’s demon in the quantum-Zeno regime and beyond

The long-standing paradigm of Maxwells demon is till nowadays a frequently investigated issue, which still provides interesting insights into basic physical questions. Considering a single-electron transistor, where we implement a Maxwell demon by a piecewise-constant feedback protocol, we investigate quantum implications of the Maxwell demon. To this end, we harness a dynamical coarse-graining method, which provides a convenient and accurate description of the system dynamics even for high measurement rates. In doing so, we are able to investigate the Maxwell demon in a quantum-Zeno regime leading to transport blockade. We argue that there is a measurement rate providing an optimal performance. Moreover, we find that besides building up a chemical gradient, there can be also a regime where additionally the system under consideration provides energy to the demon due to the quantum measurement.

Critical quasienergy states in driven many-body systems

We discuss singularities in the spectrum of driven many-body spin systems. In contrast to undriven models, the driving allows us to control the geometry of the quasienergy landscape. As a consequence, one can engineer singularities in the density of quasienergy states by tuning an external control. We show that the density of levels exhibits logarithmic divergences at the saddle points, while jumps are due to local minima of the quasienergy landscape. We discuss the characteristic signatures of these divergences in observables such as the magnetization, which should be measurable with current technology.

Random-walk topological transition revealed via electron counting

The appearance of topological effects in systems exhibiting a nontrivial topological band structure strongly relies on the coherent wave nature of the equations of motion. Here, we reveal topological dynamics in a classical stochastic random walk version of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model with no relation to coherent wave dynamics. We explain that the commonly used topological invariant in the momentum space translates into an invariant in a counting-field space. This invariant gives rise to clear signatures of the topological phase in an associated escape time distribution.

Semiclassical bifurcations and topological phase transitions in a one-dimensional lattice of coupled Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models.

In this work we study a one-dimensional lattice of Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models with alternating couplings between nearest-neighbors sites, which resembles the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. Typical properties of the underlying models are present in our semiclassical-topological hybrid system, allowing us to investigate an interplay between semiclassical bifurcations at mean-field level and topological phases. Our results show that bifurcations of the energy landscape lead to diverse ordered quantum phases. Furthermore, the study of the quantum fluctuations around the mean-field solution reveals the existence of nontrivial topological phases. These are characterized by the emergence of localized states at the edges of a chain with free open-boundary conditions.

Bosonic Josephson effect in the Fano-Anderson model

We investigate the coherent dynamics of a non-interacting Bose-Einstein condensate in a system consisting of two bosonic reservoirs coupled via a spatially localized mode. We describe this system by a two-terminal Fano-Anderson model and investigate analytically the time evolution of observables such as the bosonic Josephson current. In doing so, we find that the Josephson current sensitively depends on the on-site energy of the localized mode. This facilitates to use this setup as a transistor for a Bose-Einstein condensate. We identify two regimes. In one regime, the system exhibits well-behaved long-time dynamics with a slowly oscillating and undamped Josephson current. In a second regime, the Josephson current is a superposition of an extremely weakly damped slow oscillation and an undamped fast oscillation. Our results are confirmed by finite-size simulations.