Simulating Floquet topological phases in static systems

Abstract

We show that scattering from the boundary of static, higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) can be used to simulate the behavior of (time-periodic) Floquet topological insulators. We consider D-dimensional HOTIs with gapless corner states which are weakly probed by external waves in a scattering setup. We find that the unitary reflection matrix describing back-scattering from the boundary of the HOTI is topologically equivalent to a (D - 1)-dimensional nontrivial Floquet operator. To characterize the topology of the reflection matrix, we introduce the concept of ‘nested’ scattering matrices. Our results provide a route to engineer topological Floquet systems in the lab without the need for external driving. As benefit, the topological system does not suffer from decoherence and heating.