Topological Transport in Spin-Orbit Coupled Bosonic Mott Insulators

We investigate topological transport in spin-orbit coupled bosonic Mott insulators. We show that interactions can lead to anomalous quasiparticle dynamics even when the spin-orbit coupling is Abelian. To illustrate the latter, we consider the spin-orbit coupling realized in the experiment of Lin et al. [Nature (London) 471, 83 (2011)]. For this spin-orbit coupling, we compute the quasiparticle dispersions and spectral weights, the interaction-induced momentum-space Berry curvature, and the momentum-space distribution of spin density, and propose experimental signatures. Furthermore, we find that, for a generic spin orbit coupling, in our approximation for the single-particle propagator, the ground state can in principle support an integer Hall conductivity if the sum of the Chern numbers of the hole bands is nonzero. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.115301