Topology in shallow-water waves: A spectral flow perspective

Abstract: In the context of topological insulators, the shallow-water model was recently shown to exhibit an anomalous bulk-edge correspondence. For the model with a boundary, the parameter space involves both longitudinal momentum and boundary conditions, and exhibits a peculiar singularity. We resolve the anomaly in question by defining a new kind of edge index as the spectral flow around this singularity. Crucially, this edge index samples a whole family of boundary conditions, and we interpret it as a boundary-driven quantized pumping. Our edge index is stable due to the topological nature of spectral flow, and we prove its correspondence with the bulk Chern number index using scattering theory and a relative version of Levinson's theorem. The full spectral flow structure of the model is also investigated.