English

All "Magic Angles" Are "Stable" Topological

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2019-07-24 v2

Abstract

We show that the electronic structure of the low-energy bands in the small angle-twisted bilayer graphene consists of a series of semi-metallic and topological phases. In particular we are able to prove, using an approximate low-energy particle-hole symmetry, that the gapped set of bands that exist around all magic angles has what we conjecture to be a stable topological index stabilized by a magnetic symmetry and reflected in the odd winding of the Wilson loop in the Moir\'e BZ. The approximate, emergent particle-hole symmetry is essential to the topology of graphene: when strongly broken, non-topological phases can appear. Our paper underpins topology as the crucial ingredient to the description of low-energy graphene. We provide a 44-band short range tight-binding model whose 22 lower bands have the same topology, symmetry, and flatness as those of the twisted graphene, and which can be used as an effective low-energy model. We then perform large-scale (1100011000 atoms per unit cell, 40 days per k\bf k-point computing time) ab-initio calculations of a series of small angles, from 33^\circ to 11^\circ, which show a more complex and somewhat qualitatively different evolution of the symmetry of the low-energy bands than that of the theoretical Moir\'e model, but which confirms the topological nature of the system. At certain angles, we find no insulating filling in graphene at 4-4 electrons per Moir\'e unit cell. The ab-initio evolution of gaps tends to differ from that of the continuum Moir\'e model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1807.10676,
  title  = {All "Magic Angles" Are "Stable" Topological},
  author = {Zhida Song and Zhijun Wang and Wujun Shi and Gang Li and Chen Fang and B. Andrei Bernevig},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.10676},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

7+23 pages, 3+12 figures, 2+3 tables; v2: references added, note added

R2 v1 2026-06-23T03:17:12.583Z