Berry Curvature and Topological Phase: From Cold to Hot Plasmas*

Nontrivial topology in bulk matter has been linked with the existence of topologically protected interfacial states in a diverse set of physical systems, including condensed matter, photonic systems, and recently, fluids and plasmas.  The geometrical Berry curvature is also associated with corrections to the ray-tracing equations.  Standard methods allow calculation of the Berry curvature and topological phase of a cold plasma.  This has led, for example, to the prediction of a gaseous plasmon polariton of topological origin [1].  But so far there is no theoretical framework for determining the Berry curvature and topological phase of hot plasmas.  Here, we propose a formalism for computing these quantities based on the hot-plasma dielectric tensor.  Moreover, we explicitly calculate the Berry curvature and topological phase of generalized (electromagnetic) Bernstein modes in a Maxwellian plasma.

 

[1] J. B. Parker, J. B. Marston, S. M. Tobias, Z. Zhu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 195001 (2020)