Driving protocol for a Floquet topological phase without static counterpart

Periodically driven systems play a prominent role in optical lattices. In these ultracold atomic systems, driving is used to create a variety of interesting behaviours, of which an important example is provided by topological states of matter. Such Floquet topological phases have a richer classification than their equilibrium counterparts. Although there exist analogues of the equilibrium topological phases that are characterised by a Chern number, the corresponding Hall conductivity, and protected edge states, there is an additional possibility. This is a phase that has a vanishing Chern number and no Hall conductivity, but nevertheless hosts anomalous topological edge states (Rudner et al ( 2013 Phys. Rev. X http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.3.031005 3 http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.3.031005 )). Due to experimental difficulties associated with the observation of such a phase, it has not been experimentally realised in optical lattices so far. In this paper, we show that optical lattices prove to be a good candidate for its realisation and observation, because they can be driven in a controlled manner. Specifically, we present a simple shaking protocol that serves to realise this special Floquet phase, discuss the specific properties that it has, and propose a method to experimentally detect this fascinating topological phase that has no counterpart in equilibrium systems.