Reentrant topology and reverse pumping in a quasiperiodic flux ladder

Abstract: Topological phases of matter are known to be unstable against strong onsite disorder in one dimension. In this work, however, we propose that in the case of a topological ladder, an onsite quasiperiodic disorder under proper conditions, first destroys the initial topological phase and subsequently, induces another topological phase through a gap-closing point. Remarkably, by allowing a staggered flux piercing through the plaquettes of the ladder, the gapless point bifurcates into two gapless critical lines, resulting in a trivial gapped phase sandwiched between the two topological phases. This results in a scenario where the system first undergoes a transition from one topological phase to a trivial phase and then to the other topological phase as a function of the quasiperiodic disorder strength. Such disorder induced re-entrant topological phase transition reveals a phenomenon of direction reversal in the topological transport, which we identify through Thouless charge pumping.