Topological Zero Modes and Correlation Pumping in an Engineered Kondo Lattice
Journal article, 2025

Topological phases of matter provide a flexible platform to engineer unconventional quantum excitations in quantum materials. Beyond single particle topological matter, in systems with strong quantum many-body correlations, many-body effects can be the driving force for non-trivial topology. Here, we propose a one-dimensional engineered Kondo lattice where the emergence of topological excitations is driven by collective many-body Kondo physics. We first show the existence of topological zero modes in this system by solving the interacting model with tensor networks, and demonstrate their robustness against disorder. To unveil the origin of the topological zero modes, we analyze the associated periodic Anderson model showing that it can be mapped to a topological non-Hermitian model, enabling rationalizing the origin of the topological zero modes. We finally show that the topological invariant of the many-body Kondo lattice can be computed with a correlation matrix pumping method directly with the exact quantum many-body wave function. Our results provide a strategy to engineer topological Kondo insulators, highlighting quantum magnetism as a driving force in engineering topological matter.

Author

Zina Lippo

University of Helsinki

Elizabeth Louis Pereira

Aalto University

Jose L. Lado

Aalto University

Guangze Chen

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Applied Quantum Physics

Physical Review Letters

0031-9007 (ISSN) 1079-7114 (eISSN)

Vol. 134 11 116605

Simulating non-Hermitian many-body topological phases with giant atoms (SING-ATOM)

European Commission (EC) (EC/HE/101146565), 2024-08-16 -- 2026-08-15.

Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)

Condensed Matter Physics

Other Physics Topics

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.116605

More information

Latest update

4/2/2025 2