First principles study of topological invariants of Weyl points in continuous media

Abstract

In recent years there has been a great interest in topological photonics and protected edge states. Here, we present a first principles method to compute topological invariants of three-dimensional gapless phases. Our approach allows to calculate the topological charges of Weyl points through the efficient numerical computation of gap Chern numbers, which relies solely on the photonic Green's function of the system. We particularize the framework to the Weyl points that are found to emerge in a magnetized plasma due to the breaking of time reversal symmetry. We discuss the relevance of modelling nonlocality when considering the topological properties of continuous media such as the magnetized plasma. We find that for some of the considered material models the charge of the Weyl point can be expressed in terms of a difference of the gap Chern numbers of two-dimensional material subcomponents. Our theory may be extended to other three-dimensional topological phases, or to Floquet systems.