Time-reversal Systems Research Articles

Realization of Time-Reversal Invariant Photonic Topological Anderson Insulators.

Disorder, which is ubiquitous in nature, has been extensively explored in photonics for understanding the fundamental principles of light diffusion and localization, as well as for applications in functional resonators and random lasers. Recently, the investigation of disorder in topological photonics has led to the realization of topological Anderson insulators characterized by an unexpected disorder-induced phase transition. However, the observed photonic topological Anderson insulators so far are limited to the time-reversal symmetry breaking systems. Here, we propose and realize a photonic quantum spin Hall topological Anderson insulator without breaking time-reversal symmetry. The disorder-induced topological phase transition is comprehensively confirmed through the theoretical effective Dirac Hamiltonian, numerical analysis of bulk transmission, and experimental examination of bulk and edge transmissions. We present convincing evidence for the unidirectional propagation and robust transport of helical edge modes, which are the key features of nontrivial time-reversal invariant topological Anderson insulators. Furthermore, we demonstrate disorder-induced beam steering, highlighting the potential of disorder as a new degree of freedom to manipulate light propagation in magnetic-free systems. Our work not only paves the way for observing unique topological photonic phases but also suggests potential device applications through the utilization of disorder.

Half-quantum mirror Hall effect

We predict a half-quantized mirror Hall effect induced by mirror symmetry in strong topological insulator films. These films are known to host a pair of gapless Dirac cones in the first Brillouin zone associated with surface electrons. Our findings reveal that mirror symmetry assigns a unique mirror parity to each Dirac cone, resulting in a half-quantized Hall conductance of ±e22h\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\pm \\! \\frac{{e}^{2}}{2h}$$\\end{document} for each cone. Despite the total electrical Hall conductance being null due to time-reversal invariance, the difference in the Hall conductance between the two cones yields a quantized Hall conductance of e2h\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\frac{{e}^{2}}{h}$$\\end{document} for the difference in mirror currents. The effect of helical edge mirror current - a crucial feature of this quantum effect - may, in principle, be determined by means of electrical measurements. The half-quantum mirror Hall effect reveals a type of mirror-symmetry induced quantum anomaly in a time-reversal invariant lattice system, giving rise to a topological metallic state of matter with time-reversal invariance.

Center Conditions for Nilpotent Singularities in the Plane Using Invariant Solutions

Recalling that at any regular point we always have a unique particular solution curve passing through it. In this work it is constructed such particular solution curve not passing through the nilpotent singularity but as close as we want to the singularity. By product the existence of such particular curve allows to use it to determine necessary conditions to have a center for nilpotent singularities in the plane. Several involve methods to solve the center problem are known all based in the existence of a change of variables and a scaling transformation of time bringing any differential system with a nilpotent center into a time-reversible system. Here we present a new algebraic method based on the existence of such particular solution curve not passing through the singular point and the involution associated to the nilpotent system with a center. The algebraic method needs the computation of this particular curve up to certain order, which can be done with the help of an algebraic manipulator. Finally a new algebraic method is derived computing the vanishing of a unique function which really gives a scalar method for computing the necessary conditions.

Empirical adequacy of the time operator canonically conjugate to a Hamiltonian generating translations

To admit a canonically conjugate time operator, the Hamiltonian has to be a generator of translations (like the momentum operator generates translations in space), so its spectrum must be unbounded. But the Hamiltonian governing our world is thought to be bounded from below. Also, judging by the number of fields and parameters of the Standard Model, the Hamiltonian seems much more complicated. In this article I give examples of worlds governed by Hamiltonians generating translations. They can be expressed as a partial derivative operator just like the momentum operator, but when expressed in function of other observables they can exhibit any level of complexity. The examples include any quantum world realizing a standard ideal measurement, any quantum world containing a clock or a free massless fermion, the quantum representation of any deterministic time-reversible dynamical system without time loops, and any quantum world that cannot return to a past state. Such worlds are as sophisticated as our world, but they admit a time operator. I show that, despite having unbounded Hamiltonian, they do not decay to infinite negative energy any more than any quantum or classical world. Since two such quantum systems of the same Hilbert space dimension are unitarily equivalent even if the physical content of their observables is very different, they are concrete counterexamples to Hilbert Space Fundamentalism (HSF). Taking the observables into account removes the ambiguity of HSF and the clock ambiguity problem attributed to the Page-Wootters formalism, also caused by assuming HSF. These results provide additional motivations to restore the spacetime symmetry in the formulation of Quantum Mechanics and for the Page-Wootters formalism.

Poles, shocks, and tygers: The time-reversible Burgers equation.

We construct a formally time-reversible, one-dimensional forced Burgers equationby imposing a global constraint of energy conservation, wherein the constant viscosity is modified to a fluctuating state-dependent dissipation coefficient. The system exhibits dynamical properties which bear strong similarities with those observed for the Burgers equationand can be understood using the dynamics of the poles, shocks, and truncation effects, such as tygers. A complex interplay of these give rise to interesting statistical regimes ranging from hydrodynamic behavior to a completely thermalized warm phase. The end of the hydrodynamic regime is associated with the appearance of a shock in the solution and a continuous transition leading to a truncation-dependent state. Beyond this, the truncation effects such as tygers and the appearance of secondary discontinuity at the resonance point in the solution strongly influence the statistical properties. These disappear at the second transition, at which the global quantities exhibit a jump and attain values that are consistent with the establishment of a quasiequilibrium state characterized by energy equipartition among the Fourier modes. Our comparative analysis shows that the macroscopic statistical properties of the formally time-reversible system and the Burgers equationare equivalent in all the regimes, irrespective of the truncation effects, and this equivalence is not just limited to the hydrodynamic regime, thereby further strengthening the Gallavotti's equivalence conjecture. The properties of the system are further examined by inspecting the complex space singularities in the velocity field of the Burgers equation. Furthermore, an effective theory is proposed to describe the discontinuous transition.

Time-reversibility and nonvanishing Lévy area

We give a complete description and clarification of the structure of the Lévy area correction to Itô/Stratonovich stochastic integrals arising as limits of time-reversible deterministic dynamical systems. In particular, we show that time-reversibility forces the Lévy area to vanish only in very specific situations that are easily classified. In the absence of such obstructions, we prove that there are no further restrictions on the Lévy area and that it is typically nonvanishing and far from negligible.

High spin-Chern-number insulator in α-antimonene with a hidden topological phase

For a time-reversal symmetric system, the quantum spin Hall phase is assumed to be the same as the Z2 topological insulator phase in the existing literature. The spin Chern number Cs is presumed to yield the same topological classification as the Z2 invariant. Here, by investigating the electronic structures of monolayer α-phase group V elements, we uncover the presence of a topological phase in α-Sb, which can be characterized by a spin Chern number Cs = 2, even though it is Z2 trivial. Although α-As and Sb would thus be classified as trivial insulators within the classification schemes, we demonstrate the existence of a phase transition between α-As and Sb, which is induced by band inversions at two generic k points. Without spin–orbit coupling (SOC), α-As is a trivial insulator, while α-Sb is a Dirac semimetal with four Dirac points (DPs) located away from the high-symmetry lines. Inclusion of the SOC gaps out the DPs and induces a nontrivial Berry curvature, endowing α-Sb with a high spin Chern number of Cs = 2. We further show that monolayer α-Sb exhibits either a gapless band structure or a gapless spin spectrum on its edges, as expected from topological considerations.

Learning Reduced Fluid Dynamics

Predicting the state evolution of ultra high-dimensional, time-reversible fluid dynamic systems is a crucial but computationally expensive task. Existing physics-informed neural networks either incur high inference cost or cannot preserve the time-reversible nature of the underlying dynamics system. We propose a model-based approach to identify low-dimensional, time reversible, nonlinear fluid dynamic systems. Our method utilizes the symplectic structure of reduced Eulerian fluid and use stochastic Riemann optimization to obtain a low-dimensional bases that minimize the expected trajectory-wise dimension-reduction error over a given distribution of initial conditions. We show that such minimization is well-defined since the reduced trajectories are differentiable with respect to the subspace bases over the entire Grassmannian manifold, under proper choices of timestep sizes and numerical integrators. Finally, we propose a loss function measuring the trajectory-wise discrepancy between the original and reduced models. By tensor precomputation, we show that gradient information of such loss function can be evaluated efficiently over a long trajectory without time-integrating the high-dimensional dynamic system. Through evaluations on a row of simulation benchmarks, we show that our method reduces the discrepancy by 50-90 percent over conventional reduced models and we outperform PINNs by exactly preserving the time reversibility.

Anomalous and Chern topological waves in hyperbolic networks

Hyperbolic lattices are a new type of synthetic materials based on regular tessellations in non-Euclidean spaces with constant negative curvature. While so far, there has been several theoretical investigations of hyperbolic topological media, experimental work has been limited to time-reversal invariant systems made of coupled discrete resonances, leaving the more interesting case of robust, unidirectional edge wave transport completely unobserved. Here, we report a non-reciprocal hyperbolic network that exhibits both Chern and anomalous chiral edge modes, and implement it on a planar microwave platform. We experimentally evidence the unidirectional character of the topological edge modes by direct field mapping. We demonstrate the topological origin of these hyperbolic chiral edge modes by an explicit topological invariant measurement, performed from external probes. Our work extends the reach of topological wave physics by allowing for backscattering-immune transport in materials with synthetic non-Euclidean behavior.

Time-reversible and fully time-resolved ultra-narrowband biphoton frequency combs

Time-reversibility, which is inherent in many physical systems, is crucial in tailoring temporal waveforms for optimum light–matter interactions. Among the time-reversible atomic systems, narrowband biphoton sources are essential for efficient quantum storage. In this work, we demonstrate time-reversed and fully time-resolved ultra-narrowband single-sided biphoton frequency combs with an average free-spectral range (FSR) of 42.66 MHz and an average linewidth of 4.60 MHz in the telecommunication band. We experimentally observe the fully time-resolved and reversible temporal oscillations by second-order cross correlation and joint temporal intensity measurements. The potential benefits of the time-reversed and fully time-resolved temporal oscillations from our source include enhancing the efficiency of quantum storage in atomic memories and maximizing the utilization of temporal information in multimode biphoton frequency combs. We further verify the heralded single-photon state generation from the multimode biphoton frequency combs by using Hanbury Brown and Twiss interference measurements. To the best of our knowledge, this 42.66 MHz FSR of our photon-pair source represents the narrowest among all of the different configurated biphoton sources reported to date. This ultra-narrow FSR and its 4.60 MHz linewidth provide the highest frequency mode number of 5786 and the longest coherence time among all the singly configurated biphoton sources so far. Our time-reversed and fully time-resolved massive-mode biphoton source could be useful for high-dimensional quantum information processing and efficient time–frequency multiplexed quantum storage toward long-distance and large-scale quantum networks.

A new time-reversible 3D chaotic system with coexisting dissipative and conservative behaviors and its active non-linear control

Most of the explored chaotic systems are either of dissipative or conservative behavior. The dissipative or conservative behavior of a chaotic system is governed by its divergence of volume. The system shows a dissipative nature for negative divergence whereas for zero divergence, a conservative nature is shown by the system. In most of the literature, these behaviors are shown in a chaotic system either with the change in system parameters or with the initial conditions. However, a chaotic system that can show both dissipative and conservative behavior based on the initial conditions and also on the system parameters is rare in the literature. Therefore, a novel chaotic system is proposed that can meet such peculiarities. In addition, the proposed system also possesses attractors of self-excited and hidden nature. The system is developed by using a Hamiltonian approach of modifying the skew-symmetric matrix and adjusting the rest of the system parameters to control the system divergence. The proposed system boasts the presence of heterogeneous multistability, extreme multistability and the coexistence of conservative flow and dissipative attractor. Many qualitative inspections are done using phase portraits, Lyapunov spectrums, bifurcation diagrams and Poincare maps to support the claims. Further, to demonstrate the controllability of the chaotic system a nonlinear active controller with single control input is designed. The real-time application of the proposed system is validated by the circuit simulation in NI Multisim and hardware implementation on a Arduino board.

Chern, dipole, and quadrupole topological phases of a simple magneto-optical photonic crystal with a square lattice and an unconventional unit cell

For the study of topological phases in photonics, while quantum-Hall-type first-order chiral edge states are routinely realized in magneto-optical photonic crystals, higher-order topological states are mostly explored in all-dielectric photonic crystals. In this work, we study both first- and second-order topological photonic states in magneto-optical photonic crystals. In specific, we revisit a simple magneto-optical photonic crystal in a square lattice with one gyromagnetic cylinder in each unit cell. However, rather than investigating the conventional unit cell where the cylinder is at the center of the square unit cell as previous works have done, we consider a configuration where the cylinders are located at the four corners of the square unit cell and show that this configuration hosts rich topological phases, such as dual-band Chern, dipole, and quadrupole topological phases. Our detailed characterizations of these topological states are based on the Wannier bands and their polarizations via the Wilson loop and nested Wilson loop methods. We study in detail both the edge and corner states of the different topological phases and show that they exhibit a special feature of “spectrum robustness.” For example, though the edge and corner states of the dipole phases living in a band gap could be pushed into the bulk bands by tuning the boundary conditions, they can pass through the bulk bands and reappear within a different band gap. For dual-band quadrupole phases, we can find a regime where both band gaps host a set of corner states simultaneously and, intriguingly, the filling anomaly of one set of corner states can leave their signatures in the filling anomaly of the other set of corner states though they are separated by an extensive number of bulk states. The rich topological physics revealed in a simple magneto-optical photonic crystal not only provides new insights on higher-order topological phases in time-reversal symmetry-broken photonic systems, the results may also find promising applications by harnessing the potentials of both edge and corner states. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Exact internal controllability and exact internal synchronization for a kind of first order hyperbolic system

In this paper we investigate the exact controllability and exact synchronization in L2 space for a 1-D first order linear hyperbolic system with internal controls located on some part of the domain. Based on the exact boundary controllability theory, we first use the constructive method to establish the exact controllability by internal controls for a time reversible system with inhomogeneous boundary conditions. The method is then adapted to prove the exact internal null controllability for a general system with homogeneous boundary conditions. These results can be then used to establish the exact internal synchronization for the system, and related subjects are further studied.

Time-Reversibility and Ivariants of Some 3-dim Systems

We study time-reversibility and invariants of the group of transformations $x\to x, \ y\to \alpha y, \ z \to \alpha ^{-1}z$ for three-dimensional polynomial systems with $0:1:-1$ resonant singular point at the origin. An algorithm to find the Zariski closure of the set of time-reversible systems in the space of parameters is proposed. The interconnection of time-reversibility and invariants of the group mentioned above is discussed.

Equivalence of nonequilibrium ensembles: Two-dimensional turbulence with a dual cascade.

We examine the conjecture of equivalence of nonequilibrium ensembles for turbulent flows in two dimensions in a dual-cascade setup. We construct a formally time-reversible Navier-Stokes equationin two dimensions by imposing global constraints of energy and enstrophy conservation. A comparative study of the statistical properties of its solutions with those obtained from the standard Navier-Stokes equationsclearly shows that a formally time-reversible system is able to reproduce the features of a two-dimensional turbulent flow. Statistical quantities based on one- and two-point measurements show an excellent agreement between the two systems for the inverse- and direct-cascade regions. Moreover, we find that the conjecture holds very well for two-dimensional turbulent flows with both conserved energy and enstrophy at finite Reynolds number.

Topological field theories of three-dimensional rotation symmetric insulators: Coupling curvature and electromagnetism

Quantized responses are important tools for understanding and characterizing the universal features of topological phases of matter. In this work, we consider a class of topological crystalline insulators in $3$D with $C_n$ lattice rotation symmetry along a fixed axis, in addition to either mirror symmetry or particle-hole symmetry. These insulators can realize quantized mixed geometry-charge responses. When the surface of these insulators is gapped, disclinations on the surface carry a fractional charge that is half the minimal amount that can occur in purely $2$D systems. Similarly, disclination lines in the bulk carry a fractionally quantized electric polarization. These effects, and other related phenomena, are captured by a $3$D topological response term that couples the lattice curvature to the electromagnetic field strength. Additionally, mirror symmetric insulators with this response can be smoothly deformed into a higher-order octopole insulator with quantized corner charges. We also construct a symmetry indicator form for the topological invariant that describes the quantized response of the mirror symmetric topological crystalline insulators, and discuss an unusual response quantization in time-reversal breaking systems.

Trigonal warping effects on optical properties of anomalous Hall materials

The topological nature of solids is related to the symmetries present in the material, for example, a quantum spin Hall effect can be observed in topological insulators with time-reversal symmetry, while broken time-reversal symmetry may give rise to the presence of an anomalous quantum Hall effect (AHE). Here, we consider the effects of broken rotational symmetry on the Dirac cone of an AHE material by adding trigonal warping terms to the Dirac Hamiltonian. We calculate the linear optical conductivity semianalytically to show how by breaking the rotational symmetry we can obtain a topologically distinct phase. The addition of trigonal warping terms causes the emergence of additional Dirac cones, which when combined has a total Chern number of $\ensuremath{\mp}1$ instead of $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1/2$. This results in drastic changes in the anomalous Hall and longitudinal conductivity. The trigonal warping terms also activate the higher-order Hall responses which do not exist in a $\mathcal{R}$-symmetric conventional Dirac material. We found the presence of a nonzero second-order Hall current even in the absence of a Berry curvature dipole. This shift current is also unaffected by the chirality of the Dirac cone, which should lead to a nonzero Hall current in time-reversal symmetric systems.

Topological metasurface: from passive toward active and beyond

Metasurfaces are subwavelength structured thin films consisting of arrays of units that allow the control of polarization, phase, and amplitude of light over a subwavelength thickness. Recent developments in topological photonics have greatly broadened the horizon in designing metasurfaces for novel functional applications. In this review, we summarize recent progress in the research field of topological metasurfaces, first from the perspectives of passive and active in the classical regime, and then in the quantum regime. More specifically, we begin by examining the passive topological phenomena in two-dimensional photonic systems, including both time-reversal broken systems and time-reversal preserved systems. Subsequently, we discuss the cutting-edge studies of active topological metasurfaces, including nonlinear topological metasurfaces and reconfigurable topological metasurfaces. After overviewing topological metasurfaces in the classical regime, we show how they could provide a new platform for quantum information and quantum many-body physics. Finally, we conclude and describe some challenges and future directions of this fast-evolving field.

Third-order intrinsic anomalous Hall effect with generalized semiclassical theory

The linear intrinsic anomalous Hall effect (IAHE) and second-order IAHE have been intensively investigated in time-reversal broken systems. However, as one of the important members of the nonlinear Hall family, the investigation of third-order IAHE remains absent due to the lack of an appropriate theoretical approach, although the third-order extrinsic AHE has been studied within the framework of first- and second-order semiclassical theory. Herein, we generalize the semiclassical theory for Bloch electrons under the uniform electric field up to the third-order using wavepacket method and based on which we predict that the third-order IAHE can also occur in time-reversal broken systems. Same as the second-order IAHE, we find the band geometric quantity, the second-order field-dependent Berry curvature arising from the second-order field-induced positional shift, plays a pivotal role to observe this effect. Moreover, with symmetry analysis, we find that the third-order IAHE, as the leading contribution, is supported by 15 time-reversal broken 3D magnetic point groups (MPGs), corresponding to a wide class of antiferromagnetic (AFM) materials. Guided by the symmetry arguments, a two-band model is chosen to demonstrate the generalized theory. Furthermore, the generalized third-order semiclassical theory depends only on the properties of Bloch bands, implying that it can also be employed to explore the IAHE in realistic AFM materials, by combining with first-principles calculations.

Quantum Fluctuation of the Quantum Geometric Tensor and Its Manifestation as Intrinsic Hall Signatures in Time-Reversal Invariant Systems

In time-reversal invariant systems, all charge Hall effects predicted so far are extrinsic effects due to the dependence on the relaxation time. We explore intrinsic Hall signatures by studying the quantum noise spectrum of the Hall current in time-reversal invariant systems, and discover intrinsic thermal Hall noises in both linear and nonlinear regimes. As the band geometric characteristics, quantum geometric tensor and Berry curvature play critical roles in various Hall effects; so do their quantum fluctuations. It is found that the thermal Hall noise in linear order of the electric field is purely intrinsic, and the second-order thermal Hall noise has both intrinsic and extrinsic contributions. In particular, the intrinsic part of the second-order thermal Hall noise is a manifestation of the quantum fluctuation of the quantum geometric tensor, which widely exists as long as Berry curvature is nonzero. These intrinsic thermal Hall noises provide direct measurable means to band geometric information, including Berry curvature related quantities and quantum fluctuation of quantum geometric tensor.