2015/09/30 by Tracy Li, Lucia Duca, Martin Reitter +6 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.quant-gas #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.other #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.aad5812
published as Science 352, 1094 (2016) · 5+9 pages, final ublished version
arxiv created 2016/06/16 · arxiv updated 2016/06/17
Topology and geometry are essential to our understanding of modern physics, underlying many foundational concepts from high energy theories, quantum information, and condensed matter physics. In condensed matter systems, a wide range of phenomena stem from the geometry of the band eigenstates, which is encoded in the matrix-valued Wilson line for general multi-band systems. Using an ultracold gas of Rb atoms loaded in a honeycomb optical lattice, we realize strong-force dynamics in Bloch bands that are described by Wilson lines and observe an evolution in the band populations that directly reveals the band geometry. Our technique enables a full determination of band eigenstates, Berry curvature, and topological invariants, including single- and multi-band Chern and Z2 numbers.