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2026 (English)In: Physical Review Research, E-ISSN 2643-1564, Vol. 8, no 2, article id 023320Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
We present a framework for characterizing higher-order topological phases directly from the one-particle density matrix, without any reference to an underlying Hamiltonian. Our approach extends the mode-shell correspondence, originally formulated for single-particle Hamiltonians, to Gaussian states subject to chiral constraints. In this correspondence, the mode index counts topological boundary modes, while the shell index quantifies the bulk topology in a region surrounding the modes, providing a bulk-boundary diagnostic. In one-dimensional topological insulators, the shell index reduces to the local chiral marker, recovering the winding number in the translation-invariant limit. We apply the mode-shell correspondence to a C4-symmetric higher-order topological insulator with a chiral constraint and show that a fractional shell index implies that the higher-order phase is intrinsic. The one-particle density matrix is formulated in real space, so the mode-shell correspondence also applies to models without translation invariance. By introducing structural disorder into the C4-symmetric higher-order insulator, we show that the mode-shell correspondence remains a meaningful diagnostic in amorphous structures. The mode-shell correspondence generalizes to interacting states with a gapped bulk spectrum in the one-particle density matrix, providing a practical and diverse route to characterize higher-order topology from the quantum state itself.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
American Physical Society (APS), 2026
National Category
Condensed Matter Physics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-385415 (URN)10.1103/rt48-gpfm (DOI)001808093700003 ()2-s2.0-105043116579 (Scopus ID)
Note
QC 20260714
2026-07-142026-07-142026-07-14Bibliographically approved