Chiral topological states in Bose-Fermi mixtures

Abstract

Topological states were initially discovered in solid state systems and have generated widespread interest in many areas of physics. The advances in cold atoms create novel settings for studying topological states that would be quite unrealistic in solid state systems. One example is that the constituents of quantum gases can be various types of bosons, fermions, and their mixtures. This paper explores interaction-induced topological states in two-dimensional Bose-Fermi mixture. We propose a class of topological states which have no fractionalized excitations but possess maximally chiral edge states. For previously known topological states, these two features can only be found simultaneously in the integer quantum Hall states of fermions and the $E_{8}$ state of bosons. The existences of some proposed states in certain continuum and lattice models are corroborated by exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group calculations. This paper suggests that Bose-Fermi mixture is a very appealing platform for studying topological states.