Dynamical probing of a topological phase of bosons in one dimension

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We study the linear response to time-dependent probes of a symmetry-protected topological phase of bosons in one dimension, the Haldane insulator (HI). This phase is separated from the ordinary Mott insulator (MI) and density-wave (DW) phases by continuous transitions, whose field theoretical description is reviewed here. Using this technique, we compute the absorption spectrum to two types of periodic perturbations and relate the findings to the nature of the critical excitations at the transition between the different phases. The HI–MI phase transition is topological and the critical excitations possess trivial quantum numbers: they correspond to particles and holes at zero momentum. Our findings are corroborated by a non-local mean-field approach, which allows us to directly relate the predicted spectrum to the known microscopic theory.