Cavity-induced charge transfer in periodic systems: length-gauge formalism

Abstract: We develop a length-gauge formalism for treating one-dimensional periodic lattice systems in the presence of a photon cavity inducing light-matter interaction. The purpose of the formalism is to remove mathematical ambiguities that occur when defining the position operator in the context of the Power-Zienau-Woolley Hamiltonian. We then use a diagrammatic approach to analyze perturbatively the interaction between an electronic quantum system and a photonic cavity mode of long wavelength. We illustrate the versatility of the formalism by studying the cavity-induced electric charge imbalance and polarization in the Rice-Mele model with broken inversion symmetry.