Interaction-driven spontaneous ferromagnetic insulating states with odd Chern numbers

Peizhi Mai, Edwin W. Huang, Jiachen Yu, Benjamin E. Feldman, Philip W. Phillips

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Motivated by recent experimental work on moiré systems in a strong magnetic field, we compute the compressibility as well as the spin correlations and Hofstadter spectrum of spinful electrons on a honeycomb lattice with Hubbard interactions using the determinantal quantum Monte Carlo method. While the interactions in general preserve quantum and anomalous Hall states, emergent features arise corresponding to an antiferromagnetic insulator at half-filling and other incompressible states following the Chern sequence ± (2N + 1). These odd integer Chern states exhibit strong ferromagnetic correlations and arise spontaneously without any external mechanism for breaking the spin-rotation symmetry. Analogs of these magnetic states should be observable in general interacting quantum Hall systems. In addition, the interacting Hofstadter spectrum is qualitatively similar to the experimental data at intermediate values of the on-site interaction.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number14
Journalnpj Quantum Materials
Volume8
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2023

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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