No Arabic abstract
We study the flat-band ferromagnetic phase of a topological Hubbard model within a bosonization formalism and, in particular, determine the spin-wave excitation spectrum. We consider a square lattice Hubbard model at 1/4-filling whose free-electron term is the pi-flux model with topologically nontrivial and nearly flat energy bands. The electron spin is introduced such that the model either explicitly breaks time-reversal symmetry (correlated flat-band Chern insulator) or is invariant under time-reversal symmetry (correlated flat-band $Z_2$ topological insulator). We generalize for flat-band Chern and topological insulators the bosonization formalism [Phys. Rev. B 71, 045339 (2005)] previously developed for the two-dimensional electron gas in a uniform and perpendicular magnetic field at filling factor u=1. We show that, within the bosonization scheme, the topological Hubbard model is mapped into an effective interacting boson model. We consider the boson model at the harmonic approximation and show that, for the correlated Chern insulator, the spin-wave excitation spectrum is gapless while, for the correlated topological insulator, gapped. We briefly comment on the possible effects of the boson-boson (spin-wave--spin-wave) coupling.
We study the flat-band ferromagnetic phase of the Haldane-Hubbard model on a honeycomb lattice within a bosonization scheme for flat-band Chern insulators, focusing on the calculation of the spin-wave excitation spectrum. We consider the Haldane-Hubbard model with the noninteracting lower bands in a nearly-flat band limit, previously determined for the spinless model, and at 1/4-filling of its corresponding noninteracting limit. Within the bosonization scheme, the Haldane-Hubbard model is mapped into an effective interacting boson model, whose quadratic term allows us to determine the spin-wave spectrum at the harmonic approximation. We show that the excitation spectrum has two branches with a Goldstone mode and Dirac points at center and at the K and K points of the first Brillouin zone, respectively. We also consider the effects on the spin-wave spectrum due to an energy offset in the on-site Hubbard repulsion energies and due to the presence of an staggered on-site energy term, both quantities associated with the two triangular sublattices. In both cases, we find that an energy gap opens at the K and K points. Moreover, we also find some evidences for an instability of the flat-band ferromagnetic phase in the presence of the staggered on-site energy term. We provide some additional results for the square lattice topological Hubbard model previous studied within the bosonization formalism and comment on the differences between the bosonization scheme implementation for the correlated Chern insulators on both square and honeycomb lattices.
It is known that a system which exhibits a half filled lowest flat band and the localized one-particle Wannier states on the flat band satisfy the connectivity conditions, is always ferromagnetic. Without the connectivity conditions on the flat band, the system is non-magnetic. We show that this is not always true. The reason is connected to a peculiar behavior of the band situated just above the flat band.
We discuss twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) based on a theorem of flat band ferromagnetism put forward by Mielke and Tasaki. According to this theorem, ferromagnetism occurs if the single particle density matrix of the flat band states is irreducible and we argue that this result can be applied to the quasi-flat bands of TBG that emerge around the charge-neutrality point for twist angles around the magic angle $thetasim1.05^circ$. We show that the density matrix is irreducible in this case, thus predicting a ferromagnetic ground state for neutral TBG ($n=0$). We then show that the theorem can also be applied only to the flat conduction or valence bands, if the substrate induces a single-particle gap at charge neutrality. Also in this case, the corresponding density matrix turns out to be irreducible, leading to ferromagnetism at half filling ($n=pm2$).
We elaborate the first theoretical realization of two dimensional itinerant topological magnons, based on the quarter filled Haldane-Hubbard model with a nearly-flat electron band. By using the exact diagonalization method with a projection onto this band, we obtain the spin wave excitations over the itinerant ferromagnetic ground state. In the flatband limit, the excitation exhibits similar dispersion to the free electron band with Dirac magnons. The nonflatness of the electron band opens a topological gap at Dirac points and leads to an acoustic magnon band with a nonzero Chern number. We further show that tuning the sublattice Hubbard interactions or the next-nearest-neighbor hopping can induce a topological transition characterized by the gap closing and reopening, and the existence of the in-gap magnons on magnetic domain walls. We find an exact set of bases for magnons in the flatband limit constructed from sublattice particle-hole vectors and derive an effective model to explore the origin of the topological magnon which is attributed to the ``mass inversion mechanism.
Recent advance in quantum simulations of interacting photons using superconducting circuits offers opportunities for investigating the Bose-Hubbard model in various geometries with hopping coefficients and self-interactions tuned to both signs. Here we investigate phenomena related to localized states associated with a flat-band supported by the saw-tooth geometry. A localization-delocalization transition emerges in the non-interacting regime as the sign of hopping coefficient is changed. In the presence of interactions, patterns of localized states approach a uniform density distribution for repulsive interactions while interesting localized density patterns can arise in strongly attractive regime. The density patterns indicate the underlying inhomogeneity of the simulator. Two-particle correlations can further distinguish the nature of the localized states in attractive and repulsive interaction regimes. We also survey possible experimental implementations of the simulator.