English

Angle Dependence of Landau Level Spectrum in Twisted Bilayer Graphene

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2015-05-28 v2

Abstract

In the context of the low energy effective theory, the exact Landau level spectrum of quasiparticles in twisted bilayer graphene with small twist angle is analytically obtained by spheroidal eigenvalues. We analyze the dependence of the Landau levels on the twist angle to find the points, where the two-fold degeneracy for twist angles is lifted in the nonzero modes and below/above which massive/massless fermion pictures become valid. In the perpendicular magnetic field of 10\,T, the degeneracy is removed at θdeg3\theta_{{\rm deg}}\sim 3^\circ %angles around 3 degrees for a few low levels, specifically, θdeg2.56\theta_{\rm deg}\simeq 2.56^\circ for the first pair of nonzero levels and θdeg3.50\theta_{\rm deg}\simeq 3.50^\circ for the next pair. Massive quasiparticle appears at θ<θc1.17\theta<\theta_{{\rm c}}\simeq 1.17^\circ in 10\,T, %angles less than 1.17 degrees. which match perfectly with the recent experimental results. Since our analysis is applicable to the cases of arbitrary constant magnetic fields, we make predictions for the same experiment performed in arbitrary constant magnetic fields, e.g., for B=40\,T we get θc2.34\theta_{\rm c}\simeq 2.34^\circ and the sequence of angles θdeg=5.11,7.01,8.42,...\theta_{\rm deg} = 5.11, 7.01, 8.42,... for the pairs of nonzero energy levels. The symmetry restoration mechanism behind the massive/massless transition is conjectured to be a tunneling (instanton) in momentum space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1105.4551,
  title  = {Angle Dependence of Landau Level Spectrum in Twisted Bilayer Graphene},
  author = {Min-Young Choi and Young-Hwan Hyun and Yoonbai Kim},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1105.4551},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

8 pages, 7 figures, version to appear in PRB