Engineering topological chiral transport in a flat-band lattice of ultracold atoms.

Abstract

The manipulation of particle transport in synthetic quantum matter is an active research frontier for its theoretical importance and potential applications. Here we experimentally demonstrate an engineered topological transport in a synthetic flat-band lattice of ultracold ⁸⁷Rb atoms. We implement a quasi-one-dimensional rhombic chain with staggered flux in the momentum space of the atomic condensate and observe biased local oscillations that originate from the flat-band localization under the staggered synthetic flux. Based on these features, we design and experimentally confirm a state-dependent chiral transport under the periodic modulation of the synthetic flux. We show that the phenomenon is associated with the topology of the Floquet Bloch bands of a coarse-grained effective Hamiltonian. Our work opens the new avenue for exploring flat-band-assistant topological transport with ultracold atoms, and offers a new strategy for designing efficient quantum device with topological robustness.