Toeplitz operators on concave corners and topologically protected corner states

DOI10.1007/S11005-019-01184-WMaRDI QIDQ2329425zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 17 October 2019

Published in Letters in Mathematical Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.01533

\(K\)-theory and index theory bulk-edge and corner correspondence Toeplitz operators on concave corners topologically protected corner states

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Index theory (19K56) Toeplitz operators, Hankel operators, Wiener-Hopf operators (47B35) Applications of quantum theory to specific physical systems (81V99)

Abstract: We consider Toeplitz operators defined on a concave corner-shaped subset of the square lattice. We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for these operators to be Fredholm. We further construct a Fredholm concave corner Toeplitz operator of index one. By using this, a relation between Fredholm indices of quarter-plane and concave corner Toeplitz operators is clarified. As an application, topological invariants and corner states for some bulk-edges gapped Hamiltonians on two-dimensional (2-D) class AIII and 3-D class A systems with concave corners are studied. Explicit examples clarify that these topological invariants depend on the shape of the system. We discuss the Benalcazar--Bernevig--Hughes' 2-D Hamiltonian and see that there still exists topologically protected corner states even if we break some symmetries as long as the chiral symmetry is preserved.

Review text

For each ordered pair of integers \((j, k)\), define a function \(e_{j, k}\) on \(\mathbb{Z}^2\) that has value \(1\) at \((j, k)\) and is zero elsewhere. The set \(\{e_{j, k}\}\) is the standard orthonormal basis for the Hilbert space \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z}^2)\). For each \((m, n)\) in \(\mathbb{Z}^2\), define a bounded linear operator \(M_{m, n}\) on \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z}^2)\) by requiring that \(M_{m ,n}e_{j ,k} = e_{m+j, n+k}\) for all \((j, k)\) in \(\mathbb{Z}^2\). Next, choose real numbers \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) with \(\alpha < \beta\), and define \(\mathcal{H}^\alpha\) and \(\mathcal{H}^\beta\) to be the Hilbert subspaces of \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z}^2)\) spanned by the sets \(\{e_{j ,k} : -\alpha j + k \geq 0\}\) and \(\{e_{j ,k} : -\beta j + k \leq 0\}\), respectively. In earlier work, \textit{L. A. Coburn} et al. [J. Differ. Geom. 6, 587--593 (1972; Zbl 0252.47026)], \textit{E. Park} [J. Oper. Theory 23, No. 1, 125--146 (1990; Zbl 0732.47031)], and \textit{X. Jiang} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 123, No. 9, 2823--2830 (1995; Zbl 0845.47019)] studied the index theory of operators in the Toeplitz algebra \(\hat{\mathcal{T}}^{\alpha, \beta}\) generated by the compressions of the operators \(M_{m ,n}\) to \(\mathcal{H}^\alpha \cap \mathcal{H}^\beta\). In the paper under review, the author forms a Toeplitz algebra \(\check{\mathcal{T}}^{\alpha, \beta}\) by compressing the \(M_{m, n}\) to the span of \(\mathcal{H}^\alpha\) and \(\mathcal{H}^\beta\). He obtains index theory results similar to those established in the three aforementioned papers. The novel idea in this paper is that the author applies his results to the study of topologically protected corner states, which arise in understanding higher-order topological insulators in condensed matter physics.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(8)

This page was built for publication: Toeplitz operators on concave corners and topologically protected corner states

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2329425)