Emergent topology and dynamical quantum phase transitions in two-dimensional closed quantum systems

Dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) manifested in the nonanalyticities in the temporal evolution of a closed quantum system generated by the time-independent final Hamiltonian, following a quench (or ramping) of a parameter of the Hamiltonian, is an emerging frontier of nonequilibrium quantum dynamics. We, here, introduce the notion of a dynamical topological order parameter (DTOP) that characterizes these DQPTs occurring in quenched (or ramped) two-dimensional closed quantum systems; this is quite a nontrivial generalization of the notion of DTOP introduced in Budich and Heyl [Phys. Rev. B 93, 085416 (2016)] for one-dimensional situations. This DTOP is obtained from the "gauge-invariant" Pancharatnam phase extracted from the Loschmidt overlap, i.e., the modulus of the overlap between the initially prepared state and its time-evolved counterpart reached following a temporal evolution generated by the time-independent final Hamiltonian. This generic proposal is illustrated considering DQPTs occurring in the subsequent temporal evolution following a sudden quench of the staggered mass of the topological Haldane model on a hexagonal lattice where it stays fixed to zero or unity and makes a discontinuous jump between these two values at critical times at which DQPTs occur. What is remarkable is that while the topology of the equilibrium model is characterized by the Chern number, the emergent topology associated with the DQPTs is characterized by a generalized winding number.