English

Systematic study for two-dimensional $Z_2$ topological phase transitions at high-symmetry points in all layer groups

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2023-03-13 v2 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

We construct a general theory of Z2Z_2 topological phase transitions in two-dimensional systems with time-reversal symmetry. We investigate the possibilities of Z2Z_2 topological phase transitions at band inversions at all high-symmetry points in kk-space in all the 80 layer groups. We exclude the layer groups with inversion symmetry because the Z2Z_2 topological phase transition is known to be associated with band inversions with an exchange of parities. Among the other layer groups, we find 21 layer groups with insulator-to-insulator transitions with band inversion, and this problem is finally reduced to five point groups C3,C4,C6,S4C_3, C_4, C_6, S_4, and C3hC_{3h}. We show how the change of the Z2Z_2 topological invariant at a band inversion is entirely determined by the irreps of occupied and unoccupied bands at the high-symmetry point. For example, in the case of C3C_3, we show that the Z2Z_2 topological invariants change whenever the band inversion occurs between two Kramers pairs whose C3C_3 eigenvalues are {eπi/3,eπi/3}\{e^{\pi i / 3}, e^{-\pi i / 3}\} and {1,1}\{-1, -1\}. These results are not included in the theory of symmetry-based indicators or topological quantum chemistry.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.15974,
  title  = {Systematic study for two-dimensional $Z_2$ topological phase transitions at high-symmetry points in all layer groups},
  author = {Ren Sasaki and Yutaro Tanaka and Shuichi Murakami},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.15974},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

15 pages, 9 figures