Talks

In this talk, I will focus on topological aspects and edge states of a spin system on a Kagome lattice. with the anisotropic XXZ and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). I will begin with the rich phase diagram in the classical limit arising as a result of the interplay of the two interaction strengths, followed by a spin-wave analysis in some of these phases. These spin-waves (or magnons) are studied using the Holstein-Primakoff transformations.   In the  ferromagnetic phase in which all the spins point along the +z or -z direction the bulk bands are separated from each other by finite energy gaps. Finding the Chern numbers here one finds that, there are four topologically distinct phases sharing the same ground state spin-configuration.  Hence an infinite strip of the system hosts robust edge states which are directly related to the Chern number of the bands. The other phases also are found to have edge modes. However, these are not topologically protected because of the gapless nature of the energy dispersion. 

We uncover a rich phenomenology of the self-organized honeycomb network superstructure of one-dimensional metals in a nearly-commensurate charge-density wave 1T-TaS${}_2$, which may play a significant role in understanding global topology of phase diagrams and superconductivity. The key observation is that the emergent honeycomb network magically supports a cascade of flat bands, whose unusual stability we thoroughly investigate. Furthermore, by combining the weak-coupling mean-field and strong-coupling approaches, we argue that the superconductivity will be strongly enhanced in the network. This provides a natural cooperative mechanism of the charge order and superconductivity, which coexist side-by-side in the 1T-TaS${}_2$. Not only explaining the superconductivity, we show that abundant topological band structures including several symmetry-protected band crossings and corner states, which are closely related to that of the higher-order topology, appear. The results reported here can be generically applicable to various other systems with similar network superstructures.

It has been recently pointed out that variable weak gravitational lensing effects on the motion of background stars can be used to probe nonluminous structures inside the Milky Way halo. I will describe one possible detection strategy targeting collapsed dark matter structures in the mass range from million to billion solar masses. The data analysis technique will be discussed in detail with an application to the second data release of Gaia.