English

Failure of Topological Invariants in Strongly Correlated Matter

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2023-09-11 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

We show exactly that standard `invariants' advocated to define topology for non-interacting systems deviate strongly from the Hall conductance whenever the excitation spectrum contains zeros of the single-particle Green function, GG, as in general strongly correlated systems. Namely, we show that if the chemical potential sits atop the valence band, the `invariant' changes without even accessing the conduction band but by simply traversing the band of zeros that might lie between the two bands. Since such a process does not change the many-body ground state, the Hall conductance remains fixed. This disconnect with the Hall conductance arises from the replacement of the Hamiltonian, h(\bbk)h(\bb k), with G1G^{-1} in the current operator, thereby laying plain why perturbative arguments fail.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.02341,
  title  = {Failure of Topological Invariants in Strongly Correlated Matter},
  author = {Jinchao Zhao and Peizhi Mai and Barry Bradlyn and Philip Phillips},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.02341},
  year   = {2023}
}