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PUBLICATIONS

Chern Numbers Hiding in Time-of-Flight Images

Published

Author(s)

Ian B. Spielman, Erhai Zhao, Noah Bray-Ali, Carl J. Williams, Indubala Satija

Abstract

We present a novel technique for detecting topological invariants -- Chern numbers -- from time-of-flight images of ultra-cold neutral atoms. The Chern number of fermions in a lattice potential depends on magnetic field (for neutral atoms, generated by an artificial magnetic field) and the chemical potential; we find that the Chern numbers leave their fingerprints as oscillations in the atoms momentum distribution. The signature is strikingly enhanced for anisotropic hopping, where we show the momentum distribution assumes a sinusoidal form with period determined by the Chern number.
Citation
Physical Review Letters
Volume
84
Pub Type
Journals

Download Paper

DOI Link

Keywords

artificial gauge fields, time-of-flight images, topological insulators, ultracold atoms
Condensed matter

Citation

Spielman, I. , Zhao, E. , Bray-Ali, N. , Williams, C. and Satija, I. (2011), Chern Numbers Hiding in Time-of-Flight Images, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.84.063629 (Accessed October 20, 2025)

Issues

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Created December 21, 2011, Updated November 10, 2018
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