Emergent Topological Phases with Multiple Bands and Artificial Gauge Fields

Particles on a two-dimensional Kagome lattice have attracted growing attention recently in relation to topological insulators and topological phases. Such Kagome structures can be engineered in optical lattices and can also be loaded with bosons. Similar tight-binding models might also be realized in photonic QED circuits. In this work, we investigate in detail the 3-band model emerging from such a tight-binding model on the two-dimensional Kagome lattice in the presence of artificial gauge fields and identify novel phases of matter such as bulk metals with helical edge states. We investigate the stability of edge modes inside a topological metallic phase and the role of lattice anisotropies and disorder, as well as relation to current experiments.