%0 Journal Article %J Physical Review Letters %D 2012 %T Topological Flat Bands from Dipolar Spin Systems %A Norman Y. Yao %A Chris R. Laumann %A Alexey V. Gorshkov %A Steven D. Bennett %A Eugene Demler %A Peter Zoller %A Mikhail D. Lukin %X We propose and analyze a physical system that naturally admits two-dimensional topological nearly flat bands. Our approach utilizes an array of three-level dipoles (effective S = 1 spins) driven by inhomogeneous electromagnetic fields. The dipolar interactions produce arbitrary uniform background gauge fields for an effective collection of conserved hardcore bosons, namely, the dressed spin-flips. These gauge fields result in topological band structures, whose bandgap can be larger than the corresponding bandwidth. Exact diagonalization of the full interacting Hamiltonian at half-filling reveals the existence of superfluid, crystalline, and supersolid phases. An experimental realization using either ultra-cold polar molecules or spins in the solid state is considered. %B Physical Review Letters %V 109 %8 2012/12/26 %G eng %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.4479v3 %N 26 %! Phys. Rev. Lett. %R 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.266804