Wave-packet dynamics of Bloch electrons—Role of Berry phase

Motivated by a recent proposal on the possibility of observing a monopole in the band structure, and by an increasing interest in the role of Berry phase in spintronics, we reconsidered the problem of adiabatic motion of a wave packet of Bloch functions, under a perturbation varying slowly and incommensurately to the lattice structure. We showed, using only the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, that the effective wave-packet dynamics of Bloch electrons is conveniently described by a set of equations of motion (EOM) in which a non-Abelian Berry phase associated with the internal degree of freedom appears.     

布洛赫电子的拓扑与几何

文章回顾了电子的拓扑几何理论发展的初期,大约二十多年的历史。首先介绍拓扑陈数在凝聚态物理中的两个重要应用。其一关于量子霍尔效应,绝缘条件下霍尔电导可以写成一个陈数拓扑不变量,从而解释实验结果的精确量子化。其二关于绝热泵浦,它描述布洛赫能带的绝热电流响应,与电子极化有密切联系。拓扑陈数是布里渊区上贝里曲率的积分,后者本身也有独立的物理意义。接着介绍贝里曲率对电子动力学的影响,包括反常速度和轨道磁化等概念。作者还将这个理论推广到多带情况,使其可以应用到自旋输运等现象。最后,文中展示了再量子化方法,从半经典模型来获得布洛赫电子的有效量子理论。在非相对论极限下,泡利—薛定谔方程可以看作是狄拉克电子在正能谱上的等效量子理论,其中的自旋轨道耦合即是一种几何物理效应。     

Noncommutative geometry of phase space

A version of noncommutative geometry is proposed which is based on phase-space rather than position space. The momenta encode the information contained in the algebra of forms by a map which is the noncommutative extension of the duality between the tangent bundle and the cotangent bundle.     

Berry phase effects in the dynamics of Dirac electrons in doubly special relativity framework

We consider the Doubly Special Relativity (DSR) generalization of Dirac equation in an external potential in the Magueijo–Smolin base. The particles obey a modified energy–momentum dispersion relation. The semiclassical diagonalization of the Dirac Hamiltonian reveals the intrinsic Berry phase effects in the particle dynamics.     

Vortex dynamics in superfluids and the Berry phase

There is a close analogy between the dynamics of electrons in a strong magnetic field and the dynamics of quantized vortices in superfluids and superconductors. In both systems an important part is played by a term in the Lagrangian linear in velocity that corresponds to a Berry phase in the quantum theory. This Berry phase can be calculated from the usual trial wave function for a vortex. This has important consequences for quantum tunneling of vortices, and leads unambiguously to the form of the Magnus force in a superconductor.     

First-principle calculations of the Berry curvature of Bloch states for charge and spin transport of electrons

Recent progress in wave packet dynamics based on the insight of Berry pertaining to adiabatic evolution of quantum systems has led to the need for a new property of a Bloch state, the Berry curvature, to be calculated from first principles. We report here on the response to this challenge by the ab initio community during the past decade. First we give a tutorial introduction of the conceptual developments we mentioned above. Then we describe four methodologies which have been developed for first-principle calculations of the Berry curvature. Finally, to illustrate the significance of the new developments, we report some results of calculations of interesting physical properties such as the anomalous and spin Hall conductivity as well as the anomalous Nernst conductivity and discuss the influence of the Berry curvature on the de Haas-van Alphen oscillation.     

Berry phase and shot noise for spin-polarized and entangled electrons

Shot noise for entangled and spin-polarized states in a four-probe geometric setup has been studied by adding two rotating magnetic fields in an incoming channel. Our results show that the noise power oscillates as the magnetic fields vary. The singlet, entangled triplet and polarized states can be distinguished by adjusting the magnetic fields. The Berry phase can be derived by measuring the shot noise power.     

Noncommutative geometry and arithmetics

We intend to illustrate how the methods of noncommutative geometry are currently used to tackle problems in class field theory. Noncommutative geometry enables one to think geometrically in situations in which the classical notion of space formed of points is no longer adequate, and thus a “noncommutative space” is needed; a full account of this approach is given in [3] by its main contributor, Alain Connes. The class field theory, i.e., number theory within the realm of Galois theory, is undoubtedly one of the main achievements in arithmetics, leading to an important algebraic machinery; for a modern overview, see [23]. The relationship between noncommutative geometry and number theory is one of the many themes treated in [22, 7–9, 11], a small part of which we will try to put in a more down-to-earth perspective, illustrating through an example what should be called an “application of physics to mathematics,” and our only purpose is to introduce nonspecialists to this beautiful area.     

Pumping in quantum dots and non-Abelian matrix Berry phases

We have investigated pumping in quantum dots from the perspective of non-Abelian (matrix) Berry phases by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation exactly for adiabatic changes. Our results demonstrate that a pumped charge is related to the presence of a finite matrix Berry phase. When consecutive adiabatic cycles are performed the pumped charge of each cycle is different from that of the previous ones.     

Noncommutative geometry of the quantum clock

We introduce a model of noncommutative geometry that gives rise to the uncertainty relations recently derived from the discussion of a quantum clock. We investigate the dynamics of a free particle in this model from the point of view of doubly special relativity and discuss the geodesic motion in a Schwarzschild background.     

Bloch electrons in a magnetic field

A complete set of basis functions for the expansion of the wavefunction of a Bloch electron in a uniform magnetic field is derived. In the empty lattice limit this set gives the appropriate Landau free-electron wavefunctions, contrary to the Roth functions which in that limit are plane waves.     

Bloch electrons in constant electric field

The motion of a conduction electron of a crystal in a constant electric field is studied. It is shown that the modulus of the wave function inp-representation is well approximated by a periodic function for times smaller than several hundred periods.On leave from Department of Physics, Luminy, Université d'Aix-Marseille II, and Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS, Marseille, France     

Quantized Berry phase in twisted Bloch momentum space as a topological order parameter for spin chains

We show that a quantized Berry phase in Bloch momentum space can serve as a topological order parameter to the quantum phases of a gapped spin chain system with time-reversal invariance. Specifically, we study this approach analytically in a class of XY spin-1/2 chain with multiple sites interactions in a transverse field. In order to derive a proper definition of the Berry curvature in a two-dimensional parameter space, we performed a local gauge transformation to the spin chain system by a twist operator, which endows the Hamiltonian of the system with the topology of a torus T²$T^2$ without changing its energy spectrum. We show that a topological _Z2$Z_2$ order parameter can be obtained as a quantized Berry phase by a loop integral of the Berry gauge potential along quarter of the Brillouin zone, which determines the zero-temperature phase diagram of the system.     

Noncommutative space-time and relativistic dynamics

Some aspects of the approach to the Quantum Theory with Noncommutative Geometry (NCG) based in general on the Non-Euclidean momentum space are considered.     

Topological Berry phase and semiclassical quantization of cyclotron orbits for two dimensional electrons in coupled band models

The semiclassical quantization of cyclotron orbits for two-dimensional Bloch electrons in a coupled two band model with a particle-hole symmetric spectrum is considered. As concrete examples, we study graphene (both mono and bilayer) and boron nitride. The main focus is on wave effects – such as Berry phase and Maslov index – occurring at order (^h/_2p)hbar in the semiclassical quantization and producing non-trivial shifts in the resulting Landau levels. Specifically, we show that the index shift appearing in the Landau levels is related to a topological part of the Berry phase – which is basically a winding number of the direction of the pseudo-spin 1/2 associated to the coupled bands – acquired by an electron during a cyclotron orbit and not to the complete Berry phase, as commonly stated. As a consequence, the Landau levels of a coupled band insulator are shifted as compared to a usual band insulator. We also study in detail the Berry curvature in the whole Brillouin zone on a specific example (boron nitride) and show that its computation requires care in defining the “k-dependent Hamiltonian” H(k), where k is the Bloch wavevector.     

Berry phase effects on the dynamics of quasiparticles in a superfluid with a vortex

We study quasiparticle dynamics in a Bose-Einstein condensate with a vortex by following the center of mass motion of a Bogoliubov wave packet, and find important Berry-phase effects due to the background flow. We show that the Berry phase invalidates the usual canonical relation between the mechanical momentum and position variables, leading to important modifications of quasiparticle statistics and thermodynamic properties of the condensates. Applying these results to a vortex in an infinite uniform superfluid, we find that the total transverse force acting on the vortex is proportional to the superfluid density. We propose an experimental setup to directly observe Berry phase effects through measuring local thermal atoms' momentum distribution around a vortex.