An anomalous higher-order topological insulator

Abstract: Topological multipole insulators are a class of higher order topological insulators (HOTI) in which robust fractional corner charges appear due to a quantized electric multipole moment of the bulk. This bulk-corner correspondence has been expressed in terms of a topological invariant computed using the eigenstates of the Wilson loop operator, a so called "nested Wilson loop" procedure. We show that, similar to the unitary Floquet operator describing periodically driven systems, the unitary Wilson loop operator can realize "anomalous" phases, that are topologically non-trivial despite having a trivial topological invariant. We introduce a concrete example of an anomalous HOTI, which has a quantized bulk quadrupole moment and fractional corner charges, but a vanishing nested Wilson loop index. A new invariant able to capture the topology of this phase is then constructed. Our work shows that anomalous topological phases, previously thought to be unique to periodically driven systems, can occur and be used to understand purely time-independent HOTIs.