Realizing topological Mott insulators from the RKKY interaction

Tianhan Liu, Benoît Douçot, and Karyn Le Hur
Phys. Rev. B 93, 195153 – Published 24 May 2016

Abstract

We engineer topological insulating phases in a fermion-fermion mixture on the honeycomb lattice, without resorting to artificial gauge fields or spin-orbit couplings and considering only local interactions. Essentially, upon integrating out the fast component (characterized by a larger hopping amplitude) in a finite region of dopings, we obtain an effective interaction between the slow fermions at half-filling, which acquires a Haldane mass with opposite parity in the two valleys of the Dirac cones, thus triggering a quantum anomalous Hall effect. We carefully analyze the competition between the induced Semenoff-type mass (producing charge density wave orders in real space) versus the Haldane mass (quantum anomalous Hall phase), as a function of the chemical potential of the fast fermions. If the second species involves spin-1/2 particles, this interaction may induce a quantum spin Hall phase. Such fermion-fermion mixtures can be realized in optical lattices or in graphene heterostructures.

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  • Received 13 October 2014
  • Revised 4 April 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.195153

©2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Tianhan Liu1,2, Benoît Douçot1, and Karyn Le Hur2

  • 1Sorbonne Universités, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, CNRS, LPTHE, UMR 7589, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France
  • 2Centre de Physique Théorique, École Polytechnique, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91128 Palaiseau, France

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Issue

Vol. 93, Iss. 19 — 15 May 2016

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