Demonstration of returning Thouless pump in a Berry dipole system

Abstract: The Thouless pump, a cornerstone of topological physics, enables unidirectional quantized wave/particle transport via geometric Berry phase engineering in periodically driven systems. While decades of research have been dedicated to monopole-mediated pumping, mechanisms governed by higher-order singularities like Berry dipoles remain unexplored. Here, we report the experimental demonstration of a Berry-dipole-mediated returning Thouless pump (RTP) in a 1D acoustic waveguide array achieved through adiabatic encircling of a Berry dipole singularity. During this adiabatic cycle, an initial edge-localized mode first delocalizes into the bulk and eventually returns to the original edge, marking the characteristic signature of the RTP. Notably, this RTP exhibits an interesting feature of pseudospin flipping, distinguishing it from previously proposed RTP models. The demonstrated RTP contrasts sharply with the well-studied monopole-governed pumps that feature unidirectional transport.