We show that one-dimensional quasiperiodic optical lattice systems can exhibit edge states and topological phases which are generally believed to appear in two-dimensional systems. When the Fermi energy lies in gaps, the Fermi system on the optical superlattice is a topological insulator characterized by a nonzero topological invariant. The topological nature can be revealed by observing the density profile of a trapped fermion system, which displays plateaus with their positions uniquely determined by the ration of wavelengths of the bichromatic optical lattice. The butterflylike spectrum of the superlattice system can be also determined from the finite-temperature density profiles of the trapped fermion system. This finding opens an alternative avenue to study the topological phases and Hofstadter-like spectrum in one-dimensional optical lattices.

We unveil the geometrical meaning of winding number and utilize it to characterize the topological phases in one-dimensional chiral non-Hermitian systems. While chiral symmetry ensures the winding number of Hermitian systems being integers, it can take half integers for non-Hermitian systems. We give a geometrical interpretation of the half integers by demonstrating that the winding number ν of a non-Hermitian system is equal to half of the summation of two winding numbers ν1 and ν2 associated with two exceptional points respectively. The winding numbers ν1 and ν2 represent the times of real part of the Hamiltonian in momentum space encircling the exceptional points and can only take integers. We further find that the difference of ν1 and ν2 is related to the second winding number or energy vorticity. By applying our scheme to a non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model and an extended version of it, we show that the topologically different phases can be well characterized by winding numbers. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the existence of left and right zero-mode edge states is closely related to the winding number ν1 and ν2.