Observation of the Chern-Simons gauge anomaly

Topological Quantum Field Theories (TQFTs) are powerful tools to describe universal features of topological orders. A hallmark example of a TQFT is the 2+1 D Chern-Simons (CS) theory which describes topological properties of both integer and fractional quantum Hall effects. The gauge invariant form of the CS theory with boundaries, encompassing both edge and bulk terms, provides an unambiguous way to relate bulk topological invariants to the edge dynamics. This bulk-edge correspondence is manifested as a gauge anomaly of the chiral dynamics at the edge, and provides a direct insight into the bulk topological order. Such an anomaly has never been directly observed in an experiment. In this work, we experimentally implement the integer quantum Hall model in a photonic system, described by the corresponding CS theory. By selectively manipulating and probing the edge, we exploit the gauge anomaly of the CS theory, for the first time. The associated spectral edge flow allows us to unambiguously measure topological invariants, i.e., the winding number of the edge states. This experiment provides a new approach for direct measurement of topological invariants, independent of the microscopic details, and thus could be extended to probe strongly correlated topological orders.