Abstract: Condensed matter electronic systems endowed with odd time-reversal symmetry (TRS) (a.k.a. class AII topological insulators) show topologically protected phases which are described by an invariant known as Fu-Kane-Mele index. The construction of this in- variant, in its original form, is specific for electrons in a periodic background and is not immediately generalizable to other interesting physical models where different forms of TRS also play a role. By exploiting the fact that system with an odd TRS (in absence of disorder) can be classified by Quaternionic vector bundles, we introduce a Quaternionic topological invariant, called FKMM-invariant, which generalizes and explains the topological nature of the Fu-Kane-Mele index. We show that the FKMM-invariant is a universal characteristic class which can be defined for Quaternionic vector bundles in full generality, independently of the particular nature of the base space. Moreover, it suffices to discriminate among different topological phases of system with an odd TRS in low dimension. As a particular application we describe the complete classification over a big class of low dimensional involutive spheres and tori. We also compare our classification with recent results concerning the description of topological phases for two-dimensional adiabatically perturbed systems.
Joint work with: K. Gomi.

Recording during the thematic meeting: "Spectral theory of novel materials" the April 19, 2016 at the Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques (Marseille, France)

Filmmaker: Guillaume Hennenfent

Find this video and other talks given by worldwide mathematicians on CIRM's Audiovisual Mathematics Library: [ Ссылка ]. And discover all its functionalities:
- Chapter markers and keywords to watch the parts of your choice in the video
- Videos enriched with abstracts, bibliographies, Mathematics Subject Classification
- Multi-criteria search by author, title, tags, mathematical area

свернуть