Abstract: We derive a relativistic chiral kinetic equation with manifest Lorentz covariance from Wigner functions of spin-1/2 massless fermions in a constant background electromagnetic field. It contains vorticity terms and a four-dimensional Euclidean Berry monopole which gives an axial anomaly. By integrating out the zeroth component of the 4-momentum p, we reproduce the previous three-dimensional results derived from the Hamiltonian approach, together with the newly derived vorticity terms. The phase space continuity equation has an anomalous source term proportional to the product of electric and magnetic fields (FσρF[over ˜]σρ∼EσBσ). This provides a unified interpretation of the chiral magnetic and vortical effects, chiral anomaly, Berry curvature, and the Berry monopole in the framework of Wigner functions.

Abstract: By studying the topological invariance and Berry phase in non-Hermitian systems, we reveal the basic properties of the complex Berry phase and generalize the global Berry phases $Q$ to identify the topological invariance for non-Hermitian systems. We find that $Q$ can identify topological invariance in two kinds of non-Hermitian model, the two-level non-Hermitian Hamiltonian and the bipartite dissipative model. For the bipartite dissipative model, an abrupt change of the Berry phase in the parameter space reveals a quantum phase transition and is related to the exceptional points. These results give the basic relationships between the Berry phase and the quantum and topological phase transitions of non-Hermitian systems.

Abstract: We experimentally investigate the effects of noise on the adiabatic and cyclic geometric phase, also termed the Berry phase. By introducing artificial fluctuations in the path of the control field, we measure the geometric contribution to dephasing of an effective two-level system for a variety of noise powers and different paths. Our results, measured using a microwave-driven superconducting qubit, clearly show that only fluctuations which distort the path lead to geometric dephasing. In a direct comparison with the dynamic phase, which is path independent, we observe that the Berry phase is less affected by noise-induced dephasing. This observation directly points towards the potential of geometric phases for quantum gates or metrological applications.

Abstract: The quantum phase of a magnetic spin carrier can be electrically controlled via the Aharonov–Casher effect. Here, the authors isolate and handle the geometric-phase component independently from the dynamical one, allowing geometric manipulation of electron spins in a semiconductor ring array.

Abstract: We consider a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice of metallic nanoparticles, each supporting a localized surface plasmon, and study the quantum properties of the collective plasmons resulting from the near-field dipolar interaction between the nanoparticles. We analytically investigate the dispersion, the effective Hamiltonian, and the eigenstates of the collective plasmons for an arbitrary orientation of the individual dipole moments. When the polarization points close to the normal to the plane, the spectrum presents Dirac cones, similar to those present in the electronic band structure of graphene. We derive the effective Dirac Hamiltonian for the collective plasmons and show that the corresponding spinor eigenstates represent Dirac-like massless bosonic excitations that present similar effects to electrons in graphene, such as a nontrivial Berry phase and the absence of backscattering off smooth inhomogeneities. We further discuss how one can manipulate the Dirac points in the Brillouin zone and open a gap in the collective plasmon dispersion by modifying the polarization of the localized surface plasmons, paving the way for a fully tunable plasmonic analogue of graphene.

Abstract: We show that finite systems with conical intersections can exhibit spontaneous symmetry breaking which manifests itself in spatial localization of eigenstates. This localization has a geometric phase origin and is robust against variation of model parameters. The transition between localized and delocalized eigenstate regimes resembles a continuous phase transition. The localization slows down the low-energy quantum nuclear dynamics at low temperatures.

Abstract: We present an ab initio real-time-based computational approach to study nonlinear optical properties in condensed matter systems that is especially suitable for crystalline solids and periodic nanostructures. The equations of motion and the coupling of the electrons with the external electric field are derived from the Berry-phase formulation of the dynamical polarization [Souza et al., Phys. Rev. B 69, 085106 (2004)]. Many-body effects are introduced by adding single-particle operators to the independent-particle Hamiltonian. We add a Hartree operator to account for crystal local effects and a scissor operator to correct the independent particle band structure for quasiparticle effects. We also discuss the possibility of accurately treating excitonic effects by adding a screened Hartree-Fock self-energy operator. The approach is validated by calculating the second-harmonic generation of SiC and AlAs bulk semiconductors: an excellent agreement is obtained with existing ab initio calculations from response theory in frequency domain [Luppi et al., Phys. Rev. B 82, 235201 (2010)]. We finally show applications to the second-harmonic generation of CdTe and the third-harmonic generation of Si.

Abstract: Quantum oscillations can be used to determine properties of the Fermi surface of metals by varying the magnitude and orientation of an external magnetic field. Topological insulator surface states are an unusual mix of normal and Dirac fermions. Unlike in graphene and simple metals, Berry’s geometric phase in topological insulator surface states is not necessarily quantized. We show that reliably extracting this geometric phase from the phase offset associated with the quantum oscillations is subtle. This is especially so in the presence of a Dirac gap such as that associated with the Zeeman splitting or interlayer tunneling. We develop a semiclassical theory for general mixed normal-Dirac systems in the presence of a gap, and in doing so clarify the role of topology and broken particle-hole symmetry. We propose a systematic procedure of fitting Landau-level index plots at large filling factors to reliably extract the phase offset associated with Berry’s phase.

Abstract: Universal single-qubit operations based on purely geometric phase factors in adiabatic processes are demonstrated by utilizing a four-level system in a trapped single ${}^{40}$Ca${}^{+}$ ion connected by three oscillating fields. Robustness against parameter variations is studied. The scheme demonstrated here can be employed as a building block for large-scale holonomic quantum computations, which may be useful for large qubit systems with statistical variations in system parameters.

Abstract: Owing to the enormous interest the rapidly growing field of topological states of matter (TSM) has attracted in recent years, the main focus of this review is on the theoretical foundations of TSM. Starting from the adiabatic theorem of quantum mechanics which we present from a geometrical perspective, the concept of TSM is introduced to distinguish gapped many body ground states that have representatives within the class of non-interacting systems and mean field superconductors, respectively, regarding their global geometrical features. These classifying features are topological invariants defined in terms of the adiabatic curvature of these bulk insulating systems. We review the general classification of TSM in all symmetry classes in the framework of K-Theory. Furthermore, we outline how interactions and disorder can be included into the theoretical framework of TSM by reformulating the relevant topological invariants in terms of the single particle Green's function and by introducing twisted boundary conditions, respectively. We finally integrate the field of TSM into a broader context by distinguishing TSM from the concept of topological order which has been introduced to study fractional quantum Hall systems. (© 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Abstract: Zak phase, that is, the Berry phase acquired during an adiabatic motion of a Bloch particle across the Brillouin zone, provides a measure of the topological invariant of Bloch bands in one-dimensional crystalline potentials Here a photonic structure, based on engineered lattices of evanescently coupled optical waveguides, is proposed to detect Zak phase difference of photons undergoing Bloch oscillations in topologically distinct Bloch bands of dimerized superlattices

Abstract: We study the appearance of an Abelian geometric phase in relativistic and nonrelativistic quantum dynamics of a neutral particle due to the presence of an edge dislocation. We demonstrate that the nonminimal coupling of fermions with torsion introduces a geometric phase in the wave function of the neutral particle in relativistic and in nonrelativistic quantum dynamics.

Abstract: We describe a hybrid laser–microwave scheme to implement two-qubit geometric phase gates in crystals of trapped ions. The proposed gates can attain errors below the fault-tolerance threshold in the presence of thermal, dephasing, laser-phase and microwave-intensity noise. Moreover, our proposal is technically less demanding than previous schemes, since it does not require a laser arrangement with interferometric stability. The laser beams are tuned close to a single vibrational sideband to entangle the qubits, while strong microwave drivings provide the geometric character to the gate, and thus protect the qubits from these different sources of noise. A thorough analytic and numerical study of the performance of these gates in realistic noisy regimes is presented.

Abstract: We show how the Berry phase can be used to construct a high-precision quantum thermometer. An important advantage of our scheme is that there is no need for the thermometer to acquire thermal equilibrium with the sample. This reduces measurement times and avoids precision limitations.

Abstract: We consider the scattering of an atom by a sequence of two near-resonant standing light waves, each formed by two running waves with slightly different wave vectors. Due to opposite detunings of the two standing waves, within the rotating wave approximation, the adiabatic approximation applied to the atomic center-of-mass motion, and a smooth turning on and off of the interaction, the dynamical phase cancels out and the final state of the atom differs from the initial one only by the sum of the two Berry phases accumulated in the two interaction regions. This phase depends on the position of the atom in a way such that the wave packet emerging from the scattering region will focus, which constitutes a method to observe the Berry phase without resorting to interferometric methods.

Abstract: Optical gyrotropy, the lifting of degeneracy between left and right circularly polarized light, can be generated by either time-reversal or chiral symmetry breaking. In the high-${T}_{c}$ superconductor La${}_{2\ensuremath{-}x}$Ba${}_{x}$CuO${}_{4}$ (LBCO), gyrotropy onsets at the same temperature as charge stripe order, suggesting that the rotation of the stripe direction from one plane to the next generates a helical pattern that breaks chiral symmetry. In order to further test this chiral stacking hypothesis it is necessary to develop an understanding of the physical mechanisms by which chirality generates gyrotropy. In this paper we show that, in chiral metals, optical gyrotropy is a consequence of Berry curvature in momentum space. We describe a physical picture showing that gyrotropy in chiral metals is closely related to the anomalous Hall effect in itinerant ferromagnets. We then calculate the magnitude of the gyrotropic response for a given Berry curvature using the semiclassical picture of anomalous velocity and Boltzmann transport theory. To connect this physical picture with experiment, we calculate the Berry curvature in two tight-binding models. The first model is motivated by the structure of LBCO and illustrates how gyrotropy is created when stripe perturbations are added to a simple cubic model. In the second model, we examine the dramatic enhancement of the gyrotropic coefficient when Rashba spin-orbit coupling is introduced. The magnitude of the rotation of polarization on reflection expected based on these models is calculated and compared with experimental data.

Abstract: Geometric phases that characterize the topological properties of Bloch bands play a fundamental role in the band theory of solids. Here we report on the measurement of the geometric phase acquired by cold atoms moving in one-dimensional optical lattices. Using a combination of Bloch oscillations and Ramsey interferometry, we extract the Zak phase—the Berry phase gained during the adiabatic motion of a particle across the Brillouin zone—which can be viewed as an invariant characterizing the topological properties of the band. For a dimerized lattice, which models polyacetylene, we measure a difference of the Zak phase’ Zak D 0:97(2) for the two possible polyacetylene phases with different dimerization. The two dimerized phases therefore belong to different topological classes, such that for a filled band, domain walls have fractional quantum numbers. Our work establishes a new general approach for probing the topological structure of Bloch bands in optical lattices.

Abstract: For a spin-carrying particle moving in a spatially varying magnetic field, effective electromagnetic forces can arise due to the geometric phase associated with adiabatic spin rotation of the particle. We report the observation of a geometric Hall effect in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate with a skyrmion spin texture. Under translational oscillations of the spin texture, the condensate resonantly develops a circular motion in a harmonic trap, demonstrating the existence of an effective Lorentz force. When the condensate circulates, quantized vortices are nucleated in the boundary region of the condensate and the vortex number increases over 100 without significant heating. We attribute the vortex nucleation to the shearing effect of the effective Lorentz force from the inhomogeneous effective magnetic field.

Abstract: For open systems described by the quantum Markovian master equation, we study a possible extension of the Clausius equality to quasistatic operations between nonequilibrium steady states (NESSs). We investigate the excess heat divided by temperature (i.e., excess entropy production) which is transferred into the system during the operations. We derive a geometrical expression for the excess entropy production, which is analogous to the Berry phase in unitary evolution. Our result implies that in general one cannot define a scalar potential whose difference coincides with the excess entropy production in a thermodynamic process, and that a vector potential plays a crucial role in the thermodynamics for NESSs. In the weakly nonequilibrium regime, we show that the geometrical expression reduces to the extended Clausius equality derived by Saito and Tasaki (J. Stat. Phys. 145:1275, 2011). As an example, we investigate a spinless electron system in quantum dots. We find that one can define a scalar potential when the parameters of only one of the reservoirs are modified in a non-interacting system, but this is no longer the case for an interacting system.

Abstract: This is a short review of two-dimensional Dirac fermions in graphene and similar systems such as boron nitride, quasi-2D organic salts $\alpha$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$I$_3$, artificial graphene with cold atoms in optical lattices, etc. The emphasis is on magnetic field properties (semi-classical quantization of cyclotron orbits, Landau levels, quantum Hall effect, magneto-plasmons, magneto-phonon resonance, magneto-transport, etc.) and on topological properties (Berry phase, winding number, inter-band effects, merging transition of Dirac points, etc.).

Abstract: We study the magnetic relaxation rate Γ of the single-molecule magnet Mn(12)-tBuAc as a function of the magnetic field component H(T) transverse to the molecule's easy axis. When the spin is near a magnetic quantum tunneling resonance, we find that Γ increases abruptly at certain values of H(T). These increases are observed just beyond values of H(T) at which a geometric-phase interference effect suppresses tunneling between two excited energy levels. The effect is washed out by rotating H(T) away from the spin's hard axis, thereby suppressing the interference effect. Detailed numerical calculations of Γ using the known spin Hamiltonian accurately reproduce the observed behavior. These results are the first experimental evidence for geometric-phase interference in a single-molecule magnet with true fourfold symmetry.

Abstract: The geometric phase and quantum entanglement for a nonlinear field-atom system are described quantitatively in terms of different parameters. Specifically, considering a deformed Schrodinger cat interacting with a qubit and taking into account the time dependent of the system coupling. The results show that the initial state setting, atomic motion, photon number and deformation play important roles in the evolution of the system dynamics, nonlocal correlation and geometric phase. An interesting correlation between the entanglement and geometric phase is observed during the time evolution. The presented system is very useful to generate and maintain high amount of entanglement through controlling the phase variation of the system under consideration. We test this observation with experimentally accessible parameters and some new aspects are obtained.

Abstract: In the framework of open quantum systems, we study the geometric phase acquired by freely falling and static two-level atoms interacting with quantized conformally coupled massless scalar fields in de Sitter-invariant vacuum. We find that, for the freely falling atom, the geometric phase gets a correction resulting from a thermal bath with the Gibbons-Hawking temperature, thus it clearly reveals the intrinsic thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime from a different physical context. For the static atom, there is a correction to the geometric phase coming from both the intrinsic thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime and the Unruh effect associated with the proper acceleration of the atom. Furthermore, in a gedanken experiment, we estimate the magnitude of the correction to the geometric phase as opposed to that in a flat spacetime. We find that the correction for the freely falling atom is too tiny to be measured, and that for the static atom achieves an observable magnitude only when the atom almost locates at the horizon.

Abstract: The quantum evolution of particles under strong fields can be essentially captured by a small number of quantum trajectories that satisfy the stationary phase condition of the Dirac–Feynmann path integral. The quantum trajectories are a key concept in understanding extreme nonlinear optical phenomena, such as high-order harmonic generation (HHG) and high-order terahertz sideband generation (HSG). In contrast to HHG in atoms and molecules, HSG in semiconductors can have interesting effects due to nontrivial ‘vacuum’ states of band materials. We find that, in a semiconductor with non-vanishing Berry curvature in its energy bands, the cyclic quantum trajectories of an electron–hole pair under a strong elliptically polarized terahertz field can accumulate a Berry phase. Taking monolayer MoS2 as a model system, we show that the Berry phase appears as a Faraday rotation angle in the pulse emission from the material under short-pulse excitation. This finding reveals an interesting transport effect in the extreme nonlinear optics regime.

Abstract: High-order terahertz (THz) sideband generation (HSG) in semiconductors is a phenomenon with physics similar to high-order harmonic generation but in a much lower frequency regime. It was found that the electron-hole pairs excited by a weak optical laser can accumulate Berry phases along a cyclic path under the driving of a strong THz field. The Berry phases appear as the Faraday rotation angles of the emission signal under short-pulse excitation in monolayer MoS$_2$. In this paper, the theory of Berry phase in THz extreme nonlinear optics is applied to biased bilayer graphene with Bernal stacking, which has similar Bloch band features and optical properties to the monolayer MoS$_2$, such as time-reversal related valleys and valley contrasting optical selection rules. The bilayer graphene has much larger Berry curvature than monolayer MoS$_2$, which leads to a giant Faraday rotation of the optical emission ($\sim$ 1 rad for a THz field with frequency 1 THz and strength 8 kV/cm). This provides opportunities to use bilayer graphene and low-power THz lasers for ultrafast electro-optical devices.

Abstract: We study the semi-classical limit of the Schrodinger equation in a crystal in the presence of an external potential and magnetic field. We first introduce the Bloch-Wigner transform and derive the asymptotic equations governing this transform in the semi-classical setting. For the second part, we focus on the appearance of the Berry curvature terms in the asymptotic equations. These terms play a crucial role in many important physical phenomena such as the quantum Hall effect. We give a simple derivation of these terms in different settings using asymptotic analysis.

Abstract: The geometric phase has found a broad spectrum of applications in both classical and quantum physics, such as condensed matter and quantum computation. In this paper, we introduce an operational geometric phase for mixed quantum states, based on spectral weighted traces of holonomies, and we prove that it generalizes the standard definition of the geometric phase for mixed states, which is based on quantum interferometry. We also introduce higher order geometric phases, and prove that under a fairly weak, generically satisfied, requirement, there is always a well-defined geometric phase of some order. Our approach applies to general unitary evolutions of both non-degenerate and degenerate mixed states. Moreover, since we provide an explicit formula for the geometric phase that can be easily implemented, it is particularly well suited for computations in quantum physics.

Abstract: Physics at the fundamental level can be effectively reduced to an explanation of the structures and interactions of fermions. Fermions appear to be singularities rather than extended objects, but there is no obvious way of creating such structures within the 3-dimensional space of observation. However, the algebra associated with the Dirac equation appears to suggest that the fermion requires a double, rather than a single, vector space, and this would seem to be confirmed by the double rotation required by spin 1⁄2 objects, and the associated effects of zitterberwegung and Berry phase shift. Further investigation of the second ‘space’ reveals that it is, in effect, an ‘antispace’, which contains the same information as real space but in a less accessible form. The two spaces effectively cancel to produce a norm 0 (nilpotent) object which has exactly the mathematical structure required to be a fermionic singularity.