Anomalous transport in a topological Wannier-Stark ladder

Abstract

A dc (e.g., electric) field with commensurate lattice direction turns a single-particle band structure in d=3 dimensions into an infinite set of equally spaced irreducible (d-1)=2-dimensional Wannier-Stark (WS) band structures that are spatially localized along the field direction. Particle transport is expected to be suppressed once the WS bands are gapped in energy. The topological character of the irreducible band structure leads to one-dimensional sets of boundary states which fill the energy gaps. As a result, eigenmodes are smoothly connected in energy and space and yield anomalous particle transport throughout the ladder. The number of chiral boundary modes can be tuned by the dc field strength and manifests through the distribution of dissipated energy and spatial motion, and the temperature dependence of angular momentum carried by particles. © 2020 American Physical Society.