The Geometry of (non) abelian adiabatic pumping

Abstract

We give a gauge description of the adiabatic charge pumping in closed systems, both in Abelian and non-Abelian processes, and by means of asymptotic Wilson loops in a suitable parameter manifold. Our geometric formulation provides new insights into this issue, and a very simple algorithm for numerical computations. Indeed, as we show first, discretized Berry--Wilczeck--Zee holonomies are easy to implement. Finally, we study non-Abelian pumping in a solvable four-state model, already used in several contexts, to demonstrate the relevance of our approach.

17 pages, 7 figures