Observation of Kibble-Zurek Behavior across Topological Transitions of a Chern Band in Ultracold Atoms

Abstract: The Kibble-Zurek (KZ) mechanism renders a theoretical framework for elucidating the formation of topological defects across continuous phase transitions. Nevertheless, it is not immediately clear whether the KZ mechanism applies to topological phase transitions. The direct experimental study for such a topic is hindered by quenching a certain parameter over orders of magnitude in topological materials. Instead, we investigate the KZ behavior across topological transitions of a Chern band in two-dimensional (2D) optical Raman lattices with quantum gases. Defined as the defects, excitation density is reconstructed via measuring the spin wave functions, with which the power-law scaling of total excitation density is extracted and such scaling could be interpreted within the KZ framework. Our work has heralded the commencement of experimentally exploring the KZ mechanism of the topological phase transitions.