Paper

Engineering Topological Phases with a Traveling-Wave Spacetime Modulation

Serra, João C, Silveirinha, Mário G

2025

Overview

Time-variant systems have recently garnered considerable attention due to their unique potentials in manipulating electromagnetic waves. Here, a novel class of topological spacetime crystals is introduced, with a traveling-wave modulation that mimics certain aspects of physical motion. Challenging intuition, our findings reveal that, even though such systems rely on a linear momentum bias, it is feasible to engineer an internal angular momentum and non-trivial topological phases by leveraging the symmetry of its structural elements. Furthermore, these platforms exhibit a gauge degree of freedom associated with the arbitrariness in the choice of the coordinate transformation that eliminates the time dependence of the system Hamiltonian. The topology of the system is intricately governed by a synthetic magnetic potential whose field lines can be controlled by manipulating material anisotropy. Remarkably, the proposed spacetime crystals host an unconventional class of scattering-immune edge states, whose oscillation frequency adapts continuously along the propagation path, shaped by the geometric attributes of the path itself.

• Publisher: Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
• Subject: Angular momentum / Anisotropy / Coordinate transformations / Electromagnetic radiation / Spacetime / Structural members / Time dependence / Time varying control systems / Topology / Traveling wave modulation / Traveling waves