Dynamical nonlinear signatures of Kondo-driven topological phases

The probing of electron dynamics in quantum matter have been made possible by steady advances in femtosecond and attosecond laser pulses and the studies of high-harmonic generation (HHG), for which the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 2023. Recently, HHG has been proposed to detect nontrivial Berry curvature contributions to the second and third order harmonics, and has been used to probe many-body properties, providing a single measurement in which to explore topological phases in strongly correlated systems. In this work, we perform simulations of high-intensity light-matter interaction in a well-controlled theoretical model that captures the universal physics of Kondo effect-driven topological orders^1-2, and study the high-harmonic spectrum and control of topological and quantum phase transitions. We connect the DC rectification and enhancement of high harmonic orders in the Weyl-Kondo semimetal state to the topologically-nontrivial heavy fermion system Ce₃Bi₄(TM)₃ (TM=Pd)^3,4 and Kondo insulator phases related to chemical substitution studies (TM=Pt, Ni)^3,5. We further uncover the significance of features of high-harmonic generation spectra to many-body dynamics through analyzing the nonequilibrium spectral function and band topology by detection of nontrivial Berry curvature-originated second harmonic response.



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⁵D. M. Kirschbaum et al., PRR 6, 2 023242 2024