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Soavi, Giancarlo ; Wilhelm, Jan

The signature of topology in polar and chiral non-magnetic crystal classes

Soavi, Giancarlo and Wilhelm, Jan (2025) The signature of topology in polar and chiral non-magnetic crystal classes. arXiv. (Submitted)

Date of publication of this fulltext: 30 Jan 2025 08:56
Article
DOI to cite this document: 10.5283/epub.74806


Abstract

Topology is fundamental to condensed matter physics, underlying phenomena such as the quantum Hall effect in its various forms, protected surface states and spin-valley locking. Central to this is the Berry curvature, a measure of the geometric properties of Bloch wavefunctions in crystals. Despite its established connections to space inversion and time-reversal symmetries, a comprehensive ...

Topology is fundamental to condensed matter physics, underlying phenomena such as the quantum Hall effect in its various forms, protected surface states and spin-valley locking. Central to this is the Berry curvature, a measure of the geometric properties of Bloch wavefunctions in crystals. Despite its established connections to space inversion and time-reversal symmetries, a comprehensive framework linking the Berry curvature to other crystal symmetries is still missing. Here, we present a theoretical model for the Jacobian matrix of the Berry curvature in the proximity of optical resonances for all non-magnetic crystal classes. The Jacobian matrix of the Berry curvature is readily derived from the second-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities of the time-invariant point groups. We show that the diagonal elements of the Jacobian matrix, which define the divergence of the Berry curvature, are non-zero only for the chiral crystal classes, pointing towards a topological origin of circular dichroism. In polar crystals, we uniquely find a non-zero curl of the Berry curvature, suggesting a topological origin of spontaneous polarization via the Maxwell-Berry equations. Our findings thus open new perspectives for the topological interpretation of textbook phenomena at the heart of condensed matter physics.



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Details

Item typeArticle
Journal or Publication TitlearXiv
Date7 January 2025
InstitutionsPhysics > Institute of Theroretical Physics > Chair Ferdinand Evers
Regensburg Center for UltrafastNanoscopy (RUN)
Projects
Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (314695032)
Identification Number
ValueType
2501.03684arXiv ID
Related URLs
URLURL Type
http://arxiv.org/abs/2501.03684v1Preprint
Dewey Decimal Classification500 Science > 530 Physics
StatusSubmitted
RefereedNo, this version has not been refereed yet (as with preprints)
Created at the University of RegensburgPartially
URN of the UB Regensburgurn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-748065
Item ID74806

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