These atoms can be controlled with laser beams and magnetic fields, and coaxed into performing a quantum dance routine choreographed by an experimenter.

They mapped out the curvy space-time shape they created and reported their results in an article titled "Floquet Engineering Topological Dirac Bands" in the journal Physical Review Letters last summer.

They published this result, titled "Dynamically Induced Symmetry Breaking and Out-of-Equilibrium Topology in a 1D Quantum System," in Physical Review Letters in September.

In physical settings—be it solid chunks of metal or ultracold atoms—the topology that physicists care about isn't really related to the shape of the actual material.

To create a surface that would wind in both space and time, the researchers shined lasers from two directions and a radio-frequency magnetic field from above onto their cloud of ultracold atoms.

G. H. Reid et al, Dynamically Induced Symmetry Breaking and Out-of-Equilibrium Topology in a 1D Quantum System, Physical Review Letters(2022).