Topological spin phases of trapped Rydberg excitons in Cu$_2$O

Abstract

We study theoretically Rydberg excitons in one-dimensional chains of traps in Cu$_2$O coupled via the van der Waals interaction. The triplet of optically active $p$-shell states acts as an effective spin-$1$ and the interactions between the excitons are strongly spin-dependent. We predict that the system {has the} topological Haldane phase with the diluted antiferromagnetic order, long-range string correlations, and finite excitation gap. We also analyze the effect of the trap geometry and interactions anisotropy on the Rydberg exciton spin states and demonstrate that a rich spin phase diagram can be realized showing high tunability of the Rydberg exciton platform.