I am trying to understand topological insulators and topological invariant. The SSH (Su-Schrieffer-Heeger) model is often invoked as a protoypical topological insulator in 1D that carries localized zero modes at the edge. In every single treatment I could find, people compute winding numbers or Zak phases that can have one of two possible values. Thus, they are Z2 invariants, right?
Then, often the classification of topological insulators from symmetries is often discussed, and a "periodic table" is presented. (For instance: https://topocondmat.org/w8_general/classification.html). The SSH model falls into class AIII or BDI, depending on whether one considers the electronic or the mechanical case (as in Kane & Lubensky 2013, Topological Boundary Modes in Isostatic Lattices). However, in d=1, these periodic tables predict a Z invariant, not a Z2 one!
So what is it that I am not understanding here? Is the invariant from the periodic table a different one? What is the Z invariant for the SSH model then? Or am I reading the table wrong?
This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2018-06-19 08:54 (UTC), posted by SE-user henrikr