Topological phases, topological flat bands, and topological excitations in a one-dimensional dimerized lattice with spin-orbit coupling

The Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model describes a one-dimensional $Z_{2}$ topological insulator, which has two topological distinct phases corresponding to two different dimerizations. When spin-orbit coupling is introduced into the SSH model, we find the structure of the Bloch bands can be greatly changed, and most interestingly, a new topological phase with single zero-energy bound state which exhibits non-Abelian statistics at each end emerges, which suggests that a new topological invariant is needed to fully classify all phases. In a comparatively large range of parameters, we find that spin-orbit coupling induces completely flat band with nontrivial topology. For the case with non-uniform dimerizaton, we find that spin-orbit coupling changes the symmetrical structure of topological excitations known as solitons and antisolitons and when spin-orbit coupling is strong enough to induce a topological phase transition, the whole system is topologically nontrivial but with the disappearance of solitons and antisolitons, consequently, the system is a real topological insulator with well-protected end states.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Condensate Fraction and Pair Coherence Lengths of Two-Dimension Fermi Gases with Spin-Orbit Coupling

The effects of Rashba spin-orbit coupling on BCS-BEC crossover, the condensate fraction and pair coherence lengths for a two-component attractive Fermi gas in two dimension are studied. The results at $T=0K$ indicate that (1) when the strength of SOC is beyond a critical value, BCS-BEC crossover does not happen in a conventional sense; (2) SOC enhances the condensate fraction, but suppresses pair coherence lengths