$SU(3)$ Topological Insulators in the Honeycomb Lattice

Abstract: We investigate realizations of topological insulators with spin-1 bosons loaded in a honeycomb optical lattice and subjected to a $SU(3)$ spin-orbit coupling - a situation which can be realized experimentally using cold atomic gases. In this paper, we focus on the topological properties of the single-particle band structure, namely Chern numbers (lattice with periodic boundary conditions) and edge states (lattice with strip geometry). While $SU(2)$ spin-orbit couplings always lead to time-reversal symmetric Hubbard models, and thereby to topologically trivial band structures, suitable $SU(3)$ spin-orbit couplings can break time reversal symmetry and lead to topologically non-trivial bulk band structures and to edge states in the strip geometry. In addition, we show that one can trigger a series of topological transitions (i.e. integer changes of the Chern numbers) that are specific to the geometry of the honeycomb lattice by varying a single parameter in the Hamiltonian.