Topological plasmons in dimerized chains of nanoparticles: robustness against long-range quasistatic interactions and retardation effects

We present a simple model of collective plasmons in a dimerized chain of spherical metallic nanoparticles, an elementary example of a topologically nontrivial nanoplasmonic system. Taking into account long-range quasistatic dipolar interactions throughout the chain, we provide an exact analytical expression for the full quasistatic bandstructure of the collective plasmons. An explicit calculation of the Zak phase proves the robustness of the topological physics of the system against the inclusion of long-range Coulomb interactions, despite the broken chiral symmetry. Using an open quantum systems approach, which includes retardation through the plasmon–photon coupling, we go on to analytically evaluate the resulting radiative frequency shifts of the plasmonic spectrum. The bright plasmonic bands experience size-dependent radiative shifts, while the dark bands are essentially unaffected by the light-matter coupling. Notably, the upper transverse-polarized band presents a logarithmic singularity where the quasistatic spectrum intersects the light cone. At wavevectors away from this intersection and for subwavelength nanoparticles, the plasmon–photon coupling only leads to a quantitative reconstruction of the bandstructure and the topologically-protected states at the edge of the first Brillouin zone are essentially unaffected.