Rice–Mele model with topological solitons in an optical lattice

Abstract

Attractive ultracold fermions trapped in a one-dimensional periodically shaken optical lattice are considered. For an appropriate resonant shaking, a dimerized structure emerges for which the system realizes paradigmatic physics described by the Rice–Mele model. The emergent nature of the system together with density fluctuations or controlled modifications of lattice filling allow for the creation of defects. Those defects lead to topologically protected localized modes carrying the fractional particle number. Their possible experimental signatures are discussed.

Keywords

• emergent lattices
• fermions
• dimer physics
• localized modes
• solitons
• 67.85.Lm