Adiabatic continuity between Hofstadter and Chern insulator states

ORAL

Abstract

We show that the topologically nontrivial bands of Chern insulators are adiabatic cousins of the Landau bands of Hofstadter lattices. We demonstrate adiabatic connection also between several familiar fractional quantum Hall states on Hofstadter lattices and the fractional Chern insulator states in partially filled Chern bands, which implies that they are in fact different manifestations of the same phase. This adiabatic path provides a way of generating many more fractional Chern insulator states and helps clarify that nonuniformity in the distribution of the Berry curvature is responsible for weakening or altogether destroying fractional topological states.

Authors

  • Ying-Hai Wu

    Penn State University, Pennsylvania State University

  • Jainendra Jain

    Penn State University, The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania State University

  • Kai Sun

    University of Maryland, College Park and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U of Maryland and U of Michigan, Dept. of Physics, University of Michigan