The anomalous Floquet-Anderson insulator as a non-adiabatic quantized charge pump

Abstract

Periodically driven quantum systems provide a novel and versatile platform for realizing topological phenomena. Among these are analogs of topological insulators and superconductors, attainable in static systems; however, some of these phenomena are unique to the periodically driven case. Here, we show that disordered, periodically driven systems admit an "anomalous" two dimensional phase, whose quasi-energy spectrum consists of chiral edge modes that coexist with a fully localized bulk - an impossibility for static Hamiltonians. This unique situation serves as the basis for a new topologically-protected non-equilibrium transport phenomenon: quantized non-adiabatic charge pumping. We identify the bulk topological invariant that characterizes the new phase (which we call the "anomalous Floquet Anderson Insulator", or AFAI). We provide explicit models which constitute a proof of principle for the existence of the new phase. Finally, we present evidence that the disorder-driven transition from the AFAI to a trivial, fully localized phase is in the same universality class as the quantum Hall plateau transition.