Topological superfluid of s -wave-interacting fermions by engineered orbital hybridization in an optical lattice

Abstract

Recent advanced experimental implementations of optical lattices with highly tunable geometry open up new regimes for exploring quantum many-body states of matter that had not been accessible previously. Here we report that a topological fermionic superfluid with higher Chern number emerges spontaneously from $s$-wave spin-singlet pairing in an orbital optical lattice when its geometry is tuned to explicitly break reflection symmetry. Qualitatively distinct from the conventional scheme that relies on higher partial-wave pairing, the crucial ingredient of our model is topology originating from mixing higher Wannier orbitals. It leads to unexpected changes in the topological band structure at the single-particle level, i.e., the bands are transformed from possessing two flux-$\ensuremath{\pi}$ Dirac points into a single quadratic touching point with flux $2\ensuremath{\pi}$. Based on such engineered single-particle bands, spin-singlet pairing of ultracold fermions arising from standard $s$-wave attractive interaction is found to induce higher Chern number (Chern number of 2) and topologically protected chiral edge modes, all occurring at a higher critical temperatures in relative scales, potentially circumventing one of the major obstacle for its realization in ultracold gases.