Dynamics induced by a change of boundary conditions reveals rate-dependent signatures associated with topological properties in one-dimensional Kitaev chain and SSH model. While the perturbation from a change of the boundary propagates into the bulk, the density of topological edge modes in the case of transforming to open boundary condition reaches steady states. The steady-state density depends on the transformation rate of the boundary and serves as an illustration of quantum memory effects in topological systems. Moreover, while a link is physically broken as the boundary condition changes, some correlation functions can remain finite across the broken link and keep a record of the initial condition. By testing those phenomena in the nontopological regimes of the two models, none of the interesting signatures of memory effects can be observed. Our results thus contrast the importance of topological properties in boundary-induced dynamics.

• Received 25 April 2016
• Revised 20 June 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.024308