English

Orbital Description of Landau Levels

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2025-11-21 v3 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

The pursuit of a lattice analogue for Landau levels has been a central theme in condensed matter physics. Although the correspondence between Chern bands and the lowest Landau level has been widely studied, a lattice realization of the first Landau level remains elusive. Here we construct a minimal lattice model that provides a concrete orbital description of both the lowest and first Landau levels. Using maximally localized Wannier functions with ss, pp_-, and p+p_+ orbital character, we develop a three-orbital model in which the two lowest Chern bands are flat and each carries a Chern number C=1\mathcal{C}=1. The band topology arises from a sequence of ideal band inversions between Wannier states at the Γ\Gamma and KK points in momentum space, establishing an adiabatic connection between the atomic insulator limit and Landau level physics. Notably, many-body exact diagonalization reveals that the non-Abelian state can appear in the half-filled first Chern band. This construction can be further generalized to realize flat Chern bands analogous to higher Landau levels. Our results provide a new perspective on lattice analogues of Landau levels and may enable the exploration of fascinating topological phenomena at elevated temperatures.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.13071,
  title  = {Orbital Description of Landau Levels},
  author = {Huan Wang and Rui Shi and Zhaochen Liu and Jing Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.13071},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

8+13 pages, 4+7 figures