Topological matter is a popular area of current physical research.
It is concerned with those physical properties of matter that do not depend on details but are completely determined by the overall topological nature of the system.
The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three scientists in the field of topological physics.
An important direction in this field is the observation of topological phase transitions
It refers to discontinuous transitions between states with different topological properties.
Among them, the observation of Triply Degenerate Points in topological phase transitions is an important topic.
However, it has been impossible to achieve due to the lack of modulation capability.
Recently, a research team at CSU has successfully simulated and observed triply degenerate points in topological phase transitions by quantum regulation of ion traps.
The ion trap quantum simulator, which has been rapidly developed in recent years, was used in the study.
The experimental platform was built from scratch by the team of Academician Jiangfeng Du and Professor Yiheng Lin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
They developed a series of precise tuning techniques, which laid the core foundation for this research.
By using beryllium ions bound in an ultra-high vacuum environment, combined with microwave and RF modulation, the researchers constructed a multi-energy quantum system, which can effectively observe the behavior of topological monopoles with spin 1.
Through parameter tuning, the team realized the observation of topological phase transition of quantum states.
The team extracted the contribution of the higher-order spin tensor in it.
The experimental technique behind this work provides a good platform for studying high spin physics as well as more complex topological states.
A related paper has now been published in Physical Review Letters.
