Acoustic Mobius Insulators from Projective Symmetry

In the presence of gauge symmetry, common but not limited to artificial crystals, the algebraic structure of crystalline symmetries needs to be projectively represented, giving rise to unprecedented topological physics. Here, we demonstrate this novel idea by exploiting a projective translation symmetry and constructing a variety of Mobius-twisted topological phases. Experimentally, we realize two Mobius insulators in acoustic crystals for the first time: a two-dimensional one of first-order band topology and a three-dimensional one of higher-order band topology. We observe unambiguously the peculiar Mobius edge and hinge states via real-space visualization of their localiztions, momentum-space spectroscopy of their 4 pi periodicity, and phase-space winding of their projective translation eigenvalues. Not only does our work open a new avenue for artificial systems under the interplay between gauge and crystalline symmetries, but it also initializes a new framework for topological physics from projective symmetry.