Laser-irradiated Kondo insulators: Controlling the Kondo effect and topological phases

We investigate theoretically the nature of laser-irradiated Kondo insulators. Using Floquet theory and the slave-boson approach, we study a periodic Anderson model and derive an effective model that describes laser-irradiated Kondo insulators. In this model, we find two generic effects induced by laser light. One is dynamical localization, which suppresses hopping and hybridization. The other is laser-induced hopping and hybridization, which can be interpreted as synthetic spin-orbit coupling or a magnetic field. The first effect drastically changes the behavior of the Kondo effect. The second effect triggers topological phase transitions.Our results make it possible to dynamically control the Kondo effect and topological phases in heavy-fermion systems. We also discuss experimental setups to detect the signatures.