English

Open Momentum Space Method for Hofstadter Butterfly and the Quantized Lorentz Susceptibility

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2021-04-28 v2 Mathematical Physics math.MP Quantum Physics

Abstract

We develop a generic kp\mathbf{k}\cdot \mathbf{p} open momentum space method for calculating the Hofstadter butterfly of both continuum (Moir\'e) models and tight-binding models, where the quasimomentum is directly substituted by the Landau level (LL) operators. By taking a LL cutoff (and a reciprocal lattice cutoff for continuum models), one obtains the Hofstadter butterfly with in-gap spectral flows. For continuum models such as the Moir\'e model for twisted bilayer graphene, our method gives a sparse Hamiltonian, making it much more efficient than existing methods. The spectral flows in the Hofstadter gaps can be understood as edge states on a momentum space boundary, from which one can determine the two integers (tν,sνt_\nu,s_\nu) of a gap ν\nu satisfying the Diophantine equation. The spectral flows can also be removed to obtain a clear Hofstadter butterfly. While tνt_\nu is known as the Chern number, our theory identifies sνs_\nu as a dual Chern number for the momentum space, which corresponds to a quantized Lorentz susceptibility γxy=eBsν\gamma_{xy}=eBs_\nu.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.04479,
  title  = {Open Momentum Space Method for Hofstadter Butterfly and the Quantized Lorentz Susceptibility},
  author = {Biao Lian and Fang Xie and B. Andrei Bernevig},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.04479},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

5+30 pages, 3+4 figures