English

Magic-angle semimetals

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2020-11-12 v3 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks Quantum Gases

Abstract

Breakthroughs in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures have revealed that twisting creates a moir\'e pattern that quenches the kinetic energy of electrons, allowing for exotic many-body states. We show that cold-atomic, trapped ion, and metamaterial systems can emulate the effects of a twist in many models from one to three dimensions. Further, we demonstrate at larger angles (and argue at smaller angles) that by considering incommensurate effects, the magic-angle effect becomes a single-particle quantum phase transition (including in a model for twisted bilayer graphene in the chiral limit). We call these models "magic-angle semimetals." Each contains nodes in the band structure and an incommensurate modulation. At magic-angle criticality, we report a nonanalytic density of states, flat bands, multifractal wave functions that Anderson delocalize in momentum space, and an essentially divergent effective interaction scale. As a particular example, we discuss how to observe this effect in an ultracold Fermi gas.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1809.04604,
  title  = {Magic-angle semimetals},
  author = {Yixing Fu and E. J. König and J. H. Wilson and Yang-Zhi Chou and J. H. Pixley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.04604},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

8 pages, 5 figures and supplemental material

R2 v1 2026-06-23T04:04:21.853Z