Topological magnon bound states in periodically modulated Heisenberg XXZ chains

Strongly interacting topological states in multiparticle quantum systems pose great challenges to both theory and experiment. Recently, bound states of elementary spin waves (magnons) in quantum magnets have been experimentally observed in quantum Heisenberg chains comprising ultracold Bose atoms in optical lattices. Here, we explore a strongly interacting topological state called topological magnon bound state in the quantum Heisenberg chain under cotranslational symmetry. We find that the cotranslational symmetry is the key to the definition of a topological invariant for multiparticle quantum states, which enables us to characterize the topological features of multimagnon excitations. We calculate energy spectra, density distributions, correlations, and Chern numbers of the two-magnon bound states and show the existence of topological protected edge bound states. Our study not only opens a prospect to pursue topological magnon bound states, but also gives insights into the characterization and understanding of strongly interacting topological states.