CMSA Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics: Topology of the Fermi sea: ordinary metals as topological materials

It has long been known that the quantum ground state of a metal is characterized by an abstract manifold in momentum space called the Fermi sea. Fermi sea can be distinguished topologically in much the same way that a ball can be distinguished from a donut by counting the number of holes. The associated topological invariant, i.e. the Euler characteristic (χ_F), serves to classify metals. Here I will survey two recent proposals relating χ_F  to experimental observables, namely: (i) equal-time density/number correlations [1], and (ii) Andreev state transport along a planar Josephson junction [2]. Moreover, from the perspective of quantum information, I will explain how multipartite entanglement in real space probes the Fermi sea topology in momentum space [1]. Our works not only provide a new connection between topology and entanglement in gapless quantum matters, but also suggest accessible experimental platforms to extract the topology in metals.

[1] P. M. Tam, M. Claassen, C. L. Kane, Phys. Rev. X 12, 031022 (2022)

[2] P. M. Tam and C. L. Kane, arXiv:2210.08048