Chains of topological oscillators with instantons and calculable topological observables in topological quantum mechanics

Abstract

We extend to a possibly infinite chain the conformally invariant mechanical system that was introduced earlier as a toy model for understanding the topological Yang–Mills theory. It gives a topological quantum model that has interesting and computable zero modes and topological invariants. It confirms the recent conjecture by several authors that supersymmetric quantum mechanics may provide useful tools for understanding robotic mechanical systems (Vitelli et al.) and condensed matter properties (Kane et al.), where trajectories are allowed or not by the conservation of topological indices. The absences of ground state and mass gaps are special features of such systems.