Thouless Pump — Topological Charge Transport

Integer charge quantized by Chern number as Hamiltonian is cycled adiabatically

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Pumped charge: 0

In a Rice-Mele model, slowly cycling the parameter φ from 0→2π pumps exactly one electron per unit cell per cycle — regardless of details.

Q = (e/2π)∮ dk A(k,φ)

This integer is the first Chern number of the occupied band's Berry connection over the (k, φ) torus. Even with disorder, Q ∈ ℤ exactly.

The pumping is the 1D analogue of the quantum Hall effect (TKNN invariant), discovered by Thouless 1983.