Using the parton construction, we build a three-dimensional (3D) multilayer fractional quantum Hall state with average filling ν= 1/3 per layer that is qualitatively distinct from a stacking of weakly coupled Laughlin states. The state supports gapped charge e/3 fermionic quasiparticles that can propagate both within and between the layers, in contrast to the quasiparticles in a multilayer Laughlin state which are confined within each layer. Moreover, the state has gapless neutral collective modes, a manifestation of an emergent "photon", which is minimally coupled to the fermionic quasiparticles. The surface sheath of the multilayer state resembles a chiral analog of the Halperin-Lee-Read state, which is protected against gap forming instabilities by the topological character of the bulk 3D phase. We propose that this state might be present in multilayer systems in the "intermediate tunneling regime", where the interlayer tunneling strength is on the same order as the Coulomb energy scale. We also find that the parton construction leads to a candidate state for a bilayer ν= 1/3 system in the intermediate tunneling regime. The candidate state is distinct from both a bilayer of ν=1/3 Laughlin states and the single layer ν= 2/3 state, but is nonetheless a fully gapped fractional quantum Hall state with charge e/3 anyonic quasiparticles.
Phase transitions between the quantum spin Hall and the insulator phases in three dimensions are studied. We find that in inversion-asymmetric systems there appears a gapless phase between the quantum spin Hall and insulator phases in three dimensions, which is in contrast with the two-dimensional case. Existence of this gapless phase stems from a topological nature of gapless points (diabolical points) in three dimensions, but not in two dimensions.
We derive the low-energy theory of semi-quantized quantum Hall states, a recently observed class of gapless bilayer fractional quantum Hall states. Our theory shows these states to feature gapless quasiparticles of fractional charge coupled to an emergent Chern-Simons gauge field. These gapless quasiparticles can be understood as composites of electrons and Laughlin-like quasiparticles. We show that semi-quantized quantum Hall states exhibit perfect interlayer drag, host non-Fermi liquid physics, and serve as versatile parent states for fully gapped topological phases hosting anyonic excitatio…
We describe how the three-dimensional quantum spin Hall phase arises from the insulator phase by changing an external parameter. In 3D systems without inversion symmetry, a gapless phase should appear between the two phases with a bulk gap. The gapless points are monopoles and antimonopoles (in k space), whose topological nature is the source of this gapless phase. In general, when the external parameter is changed from the ordinary insulator phase, two monopole-antimonopole pairs are created and the system becomes gapless. The gap-closing points (monopoles and antimonopoles) then move in the …
It is proposed that the new generation of spintronics should be ideally massless and dissipationless for the realization of ultra-fast and ultra-low-power spintronic devices. We demonstrate that the spin-gapless materials with linear energy dispersion are unique materials that can realize these massless and dissipationless states. Furthermore, we propose four new types of spin Hall effects which consist of spin accumulation of equal numbers of electrons and holes having the same or opposite spin polarization at the sample edge in Hall effect measurements, but with vanishing Hall voltage. These…
We study the interlayer coherent incompressible phase in Trilayer Quantum Hall systems (TLQH) at total filling factor $ ν_{T}=1 $ from three approaches: Mutual Composite Fermion (MCF), Composite Boson (CB) and wavefunction approach. Just like in Bilayer Quantum Hall system, CB approach is superior than MCF approach in studying TLQH with broken symmetry. The Hall and Hall drag resistivities are found to be quantized at $ h/e^{2} $. Two neutral gapless modes with linear dispersion relations are identified and the ratio of the two velocities is close to $ \sqrt{3} $. The novel excitation spectra …
Using a mapping of a layered three-dimensional system with significant inter-layer tunneling onto a spin-Hamiltonian, the phase diagram in the strong magnetic field limit is obtained in the semi-classical approximation. This phase diagram, which exhibit a metallic phase for a finite range of energies and magnetic fields, and the calculated associated critical exponent, $ν=4/3$, agree excellently with existing numerical calculations. The implication of this work for the quantum Hall effect in three dimensions is discussed.
We propose a topological understanding of the quantum spin Hall state without considering any symmetries, and it follows from the gauge invariance that either the energy gap or the spin spectrum gap needs to close on the system edges, the former scenario generally resulting in counterpropagating gapless edge states. Based upon the Kane-Mele model with a uniform exchange field and a sublattice staggered confining potential near the sample boundaries, we demonstrate the existence of such gapless edge states and their robust properties in the presence of impurities. These gapless edge states are …
We show that the $ν=8$ integer quantum Hall state can support Majorana zero modes at domain walls between its two different stable chiral edge phases without superconductivity. This is due to the existence of an edge phase that does not support gapless fermionic excitations; all gapless excitations are bosonic in this edge phase. Majorana fermion zero modes occur at a domain wall between this edge phase and the more conventional one that does support gapless fermions. Remarkably, due to the chirality of the system, the topological degeneracy of these zero modes has exponential protection, as a…
We investigate the spectral statistics of a network model for a three dimensional layered quantum Hall system numerically. The scaling of the quantity $J_0={1/2}< s^2>$ is used to determine the critical exponent $ν$ for several interlayer coupling strengths. Furthermore, we determine the level spacing distribution $P(s)$ as well as the spectral compressibility $χ$ at criticality. We show that the tail of $P(s)$ decays as $\exp(-κs)$ with $κ=1/(2χ)$ and also numerically verify the equation $χ=(d-D_2)/(2d)$, where $D_2$ is the correlation dimension and $d=3$ the spatial dimension.
We report on low-temperature electron transport properties of MnSb2Te4, a candidate of ferrimagnetic Weyl semimetal. Long -range magnetic order is manifested as a nearly square-shaped hysteresis loop in the anomalous Hall resistance, as well as sharp jumps in the magnetoresistance. At temperatures below 4 K, a lnT-type upturn appears in the temperature dependence of longitudinal resistance, which can be attributed to the electron-electron interaction (EEI), since the weak localization can be excluded by the temperature dependence of magnetoresistance. Although the anomalous Hall resistance exh…
We argue that dynamics of gapless Fractional Quantum Hall Edge states is essentially non-linear and that it features fractionally quantized solitons propagating along the edge. Observation of solitons would be a direct evidence of fractional charges. We show that the non-linear dynamics of the Laughlin's FQH state is governed by the quantum Benjamin-Ono equation. Non-linear dynamics of gapless edge states is determined by gapped modes in the bulk of FQH liquid. The dispersion of edge modes is traced to the double boundary layer of FQH states.
Motivated by recent experiments and a theoretical analysis of the gap equation for the propagator of Dirac quasiparticles, we assume that the physics underlying the recently observed removal of sublattice and spin degeneracies in graphene in a strong magnetic field is connected with the generation of both Dirac masses and spin gaps. The consequences of such a scenario for the existence of the gapless edge states with zigzag and armchair boundary conditions are discussed. In the case of graphene on a half-plane with a zigzag edge, there are gapless edge states in the spectrum only when the spin…
NbSe$_2$ is one of metallic two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) materials. Because of broken crystal inversion symmetry, large spin splitting is induced by Ising-type spin-orbit coupling in odd-number-layered NbSe$_2$, but absent for even-number-layered NbSe$_2$ with the inversion symmetry. In this paper, we numerically calculate nonlinear optical charge and spin Hall conductivities of few-layered NbSe$_2$ based on an effective tight-binding model which includes $d_{z^2}$, $d_{x^2-y^2}$ and $d_{xy}$ orbitals of Nb atom. We show that the nonlinear optical Hall conductivi…
Layered singlet paired superconductors with disorder and broken time reversal symmetry are studied. The phase diagram demonstrates charge-spin separation in transport. In terms of the average intergrain transmission and the interlayer tunnelling we find quantum Hall phases with spin Hall coefficients of 0 and 2 separated by a spin metal phase. We identify a spin metal-insulator localization exponent as well as a spin conductivity exponent of ~0.9. In presence of a Zeeman term an additional phase with spin Hall coefficient of 1 appears.
Here, we present a temperature ($T$) dependent comparison between field-effect and Hall mobilities in field-effect transistors based on few-layered WSe$_2$ exfoliated onto SiO$_2$. Without dielectric engineering and beyond a $T$-dependent threshold gate-voltage, we observe maximum hole mobilities approaching 350 cm$^2$/Vs at $T$=300 K. The hole Hall mobility reaches a maximum value of 650 cm$^2$/Vs as $T$ is lowered below $\sim$ 150 K, indicating that insofar WSe$_2$-based field-effect transistors (FETs) display the largest Hall mobilities among the transition metal dichalcogenides. The gate c…
Quantum anomalous Hall effect, with a trademark of dissipationless chiral edge states for electronics/spintronics transport applications, can be realized in materials with large spin-orbit coupling and strong intrinsic magnetization. After Haldane seminal proposal, several models have been presented to control/enhance the spin-orbit coupling and intrinsic magnetic exchange interaction. After brief introduction of Haldane model for spineless fermions, following three fundamental quantum anomalous Hall models are discussed in this perspective review: (i) low-energy effective four band model for …
The discovery of the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in bulk metallic antiferromagnets (AFMs) motivates the search of the same phenomenon in two-dimensional (2D) systems, where a quantized anomalous Hall conductance can in principle be observed. Here, we present experiments on micro-fabricated devices based on Co$_{1/3}$NbS$_2$, a layered AFM that was recently found to exhibit AHE in bulk crystals below the Néel temperature T$_N$ = 29 K. Transport measurements reveal a pronounced resistivity anisotropy, indicating that upon lowering temperature the electronic coupling between individual atomic lay…
We discuss and review the basic physics that leads to superfluidity/superconductivity in certain quantum Hall states, in particular the so-called double-layered (mmm) state. In the K-matrix description of the quantum correlation in quantum Hall states, those states with det(K)=0 contain a special correlation that leads to superfluidity/superconductivity. We propose a four-terminal measurement to test the DC Josephson-like effect in interlayer tunneling, so that the superfluidity/superconductivity in the (mmm) states can be settled experimentally.
Usually the quantum spin Hall states are expected to possess gapless, helical edge modes. Are there clean, non-interacting, quantum spin Hall states without gapless, edge modes? We show the generic, $n$-fold-symmetric, momentum planes of three-dimensional, stable Dirac semi-metals, which are orthogonal to the direction of nodal separation are examples of such generalized quantum spin Hall systems. We demonstrate that the planes lying between two Dirac points and the celebrated Bernevig-Zhang-Hughes model support identical quantized, non-Abelian Berry flux of magnitude $2 π$. Consequently, both…
We present a comprehensive study of the effective Conformal Field Theory (CFT) describing the low energy excitations of a gas of spinless interacting fermions on a circle in the gapless regime (Luttinger liquid). Functional techniques and modular transformation properties are used to compute all correlation functions in a finite size and at finite temperature. Forward scattering disorder is treated exactly. Laughlin experiments on charge transport in a Quantum Hall Fluid on a cylinder are reviewed within this CFT framework. Edge excitations above a given bulk excitation are described by a twis…
Recently, a type of Hall effect due to an unusual layer-locked Berry curvature called the layer Hall effect (LHE) has been reported in the even-layered two-dimensional antiferromagnetic (AFM) MnBi2Te4 [A. Gao et.al, Nature 595, 521 (2021)]. In this work, we report that the quantization of LHE, which we call the quantum anomalous layer Hall effect (QALHE), can be realized in MnBi2Te4. The QALHE originates from kicking a layer-locked Berry-curvature monopole out of the Fermi sea by a vertielectric cal field. Remarkably, we demonstrate that the electric-field reversal can switch the sign of the q…
We investigate the transport properties in a zigzag silicene nanoribbon in the presence of an external electric field. The staggered sublattice potential and two kinds of Rashba spin-orbit couplings can be induced by the external electric field due to the buckled structure of the silicene. A bulk gap is opened by the staggered potential and gapless edge states appear in the gap by tuning the two kinds of Rashba spin-orbit couplings properly. Furthermore, the gapless edge states are spin-filtered and are insensitive to the non-magnetic disorder. These results prove that the quantum spin Hall ef…
In recent years, Majorana physics has attracted considerable attention in both theoretical and experimental studies due to exotic new phenomena and its prospects for fault-tolerant topological quantum computation. To this end, one needs to engineer the interplay between superconductivity and electronic properties in a topological insulator, but experimental work remains scarce and ambiguous. Here we report experimental evidence for topological superconductivity induced in a HgTe quantum well, a two-dimensional topological insulator that exhibits the quantum spin Hall effect. The ac Josephson e…
We predict by first-principles calculations that thin films of Cr-doped (Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_3$ magnetic topological insulator have gapless non-chiral edge states coexisting with the chiral edge state. Such gapless non-chiral states are not immune to backscattering, which would explain dissipative transport in the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) state observed in this system experimentally. Here we study the edge transport with both chiral and non-chiral states by Landaur-Büttiker formalism, and find that the longitudinal resistance is nonzero whereas Hall resistance is quantized to $h/e^2$. In particu…
The two-dimensional electron gas in a bilayer quantum Hall system can sustain an interlayer coherence at filling factor nu=1 even in the absence of tunneling between the layers. This system has low-energy charged excitations which may carry textures in real spin or pseudospin. Away from filling factor nu =1 a finite density of these is present in the ground state of the 2DEG and forms a crystal. Depending on the relative size of the various energy scales, such as tunneling (Delta_SAS), Zeeman coupling (Delta_Z) or electrical bias (Delta_b), these textured crystal states can involve spin, pseud…
We study the existence and stability of Dirac nodal lines in three-dimensional layered systems, whose layers individually have Dirac nodal points protected by chiral (sublattice) symmetry. The model system we consider is the rhombohedral stack of graphene layers with each layer subjected to a uniform external potential that respects either AIII or BDI classes. From the Hamiltonians in either classes, a pair of nontrivial spiraling Dirac nodal lines can be derived. The results are reasonable in accord to the topological classification of gapless phases for codimension $2$. The nodal lines appro…
We have discovered two-dimensional zero-gap material with a layered structure in the organic conductor $α$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$I$_3$ under high hydrostatic pressure. In contrast to graphene, the electron-hole symmetry is not good except at the vicinity of the Dirac points. Thus, temperature dependence of the chemical potential, $μ$, plays an important role in the transport in this system. The experimental formula of $μ$ is revealed. We succeeded in detecting the inter-band effects of a magnetic field on the Hall conductivity when $μ$ passes the Dirac point.
It is shown that in charge unbalanced double layer quantum Hall system with zero tunneling pseudospin Goldstone mode excitations form moving kink-soliton in weakly nonlinear limit. This charge-density localization moves with a velocity of gapless linear spin-wave mode and could be easily observed experimentally. We claim that mentioned Goldstone mode kink-solitons define diffusionless charge transport properties in double layer quantum Hall systems.
Quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulators are materials that feature an insulating bulk and host edge states protected by time-reversal symmetry. The helical locking of spin and momentum in these states suppresses backscattering of charge carriers, promising applications from low-power electronics to quantum computing. A major challenge for applications is the identification of large gap QSH materials, which would enable room temperature dissipationless transport in their edge states. Here we show that the layered mineral jacutingaite (Pt$_2$HgSe$_3$) is a candidate QSH material, realizing the long s…
Heat transport has large potentialities to unveil new physics in mesoscopic systems. A striking illustration is the integer quantum Hall regime, where the robustness of Hall currents limits information accessible from charge transport. Consequently, the gapless edge excitations are incompletely understood. The effective edge states theory describes them as prototypal one-dimensional chiral fermions - a simple picture that explains a large body of observations and calls for quantum information experiments with quantum point contacts in the role of beam splitters. However, it is in ostensible di…
We prove a general theorem on the relation between the bulk topological quantum number and the edge states in two dimensional insulators. It is shown that whenever there is a topological order in bulk, characterized by a non-vanishing Chern number, even if it is defined for a non-conserved quantity such as spin in the case of the spin Hall effect, one can always infer the existence of gapless edge states under certain twisted boundary conditions that allow tunneling between edges. This relation is robust against disorder and interactions, and it provides a unified topological classification of…
We present a description of bilayers and quasi-three dimensional stacks of Jain series of fractional quantum Hall states using their parton descriptions, and argue for them as candidate states when the interlayer Coulombic interaction is comparable to the intralayer Coulomb interaction. For the bilayers, a K-matrix theory is presented and shown to be different from decoupled or bonded layers. The quasi-3D systems have gapless gauge excitations and gapped partons that may be able to move about in the 3D, thus presenting a toy model for quantum Hall-like states in three dimensions.
In the Landau levels of a two-dimensional electron system or when flat bands are present, e.g. in twisted van der Waals bilayers, strong electron-electron interaction gives rise to quantum Hall ferromagnetism with spontaneously broken symmetries in the spin and isospin sectors. Quantum Hall ferromagnets support a rich variety of low-energy collective excitations that are instrumental to understand the nature of the magnetic ground states and are also potentially useful as carriers of quantum information. Probing such collective excitations, especially their dispersion ω(k), has been experiment…
We study the thin torus limit of the Haldane-Rezayi state. Eight of the ten ground states are found to assume a simple product form in this limit, as is known to be the case for many other quantum Hall trial wave functions. The two remaining states have a somewhat unusual thin torus limit, where a "broken" pair of defects forming a singlet is completely delocalized. We derive these limits from the wave functions on the cylinder, and deduce the dominant matrix elements of the thin torus hollow-core Hamiltonians. We find that there are gapless excitations in the thin torus limit. This is in agre…
We study a class of Abelian quantum Hall (QH) states which are topologically unstable (T-unstable). We find that the T-unstable QH states can have a phase transition on the edge which causes a binding between electrons and reduces the number of gapless edge branches. After the binding transition, the single-electron tunneling into the edge gains a finite energy gap, and only certain multi-electron co-tunneling (such as three-electron co-tunneling for $ν=9/5$ edges) can be gapless. Similar phenomenon also appear for edge state on the boundary between certain QH states. For example edge on the b…
A fractional quantization in a two dimensional space is proposed. The angular momenta of the two dimensional electrons are quantized in fractional numbers by the boundary conditions on a multi-layered Riemann surface. Extended wave functions for the incompressible quantum fluid states are presented and the cohesive and the excitation energies are given.
We study the collective modes of the quantum Hall states in undoped bilayer graphene in a strong perpendicular magnetic and electric field. Both for the well-known ferromagnetic state that is relevant for small electric field $E_\perp$ and the analogous valley/layer polarized one suitable for large $E_\perp$, the low energy physics is dominated by magnetoexcitons with zero angular momentum that are even combinations of excitons that conserve Landau orbitals. We identify a long wave length instability in both states, and argue that there is an intermediate range of the electric field $E^{(1)}_\…
Bi2Se3 is an important semiconductor thermoelectric material and a prototype topological insulator. Here we report observation of Shubnikov-de Hass (SdH) oscillations accompanied by quantized Hall resistances (Rxy) in highly-doped n-type Bi2Se3 with bulk carrier concentrations of few 10^19 cm^-3. Measurements under tilted magnetic fields show that the magnetotransport is 2D-like, where only the c-axis component of the magnetic field controls the Landau level formation. The quantized step size in 1/Rxy is found to scale with the sample thickness, and average ~e2/h per quintuple layer (QL). We s…
The critical theories for the topological phase transitions of integer quantum Hall states to a trivial insulating state with the same symmetry can be obtained by calculating the ground state entanglement spectrum under a symmetric checkerboard bipartition. In contrast to the gapless edge excitations under the left-right bipartition, a quantum network with bulk gapless excitations naturally emerges at the Brillouin zone center without fine tuning. On a large finite lattice, the resulting critical theory for the $ν=1$ state is the (2+1) dimensional relativistic quantum field theory characterize…
Bilayer quantum Hall system (BLQH) differ from its single layer counterparts (SLQH) by its symmetry breaking ground state and associated neutral gapless mode in the pseudo-spin sector. Due to the gapless mode, qualitatively good groundstate and low energy excited state wavefunctions at any finite distance is still unknown. We investigate this important open problem by the Composite Boson (CB) theory developed by one of the authors to study BLQH systematically. We derive the ground state, quasi-hole and a pair of quasihole wavefunctions from the CB theory and its dual action. We find that the g…
A coherent superposition of many nuclear spin states can be prepared and manipulated via the hyperfine interaction with the electronic spins by varying the Landau level filling factor through the gate voltage in appropriately designed Quantum Hall Ferromagnet. During the manipulation periods the 2D electron system forms spatially large Skyrmionic spin textures, where many nuclear spins follow locally the electron spin polarization. It is shown that the collective spin rotation of a single spin texture is gapless in the limit of zero Zeeman splitting, and may dominate the nuclear spins relaxati…
We study a delocalization transition for non-interacting quasiparticles moving in two dimensions, which belongs to a new symmetry class. This symmetry class can be realised in a dirty, gapless superconductor in which time reversal symmetry for orbital motion is broken, but spin rotation symmetry is intact. We find a direct transition between two insulating phases with quantized Hall conductances of zero and two for the conserved quasiparticles. The energy of quasiparticles acts as a relevant, symmetry-breaking field at the critical point, which splits the direct transition into two conventiona…
Quantum duality is a far reaching concept in contemporary theoretical physics. In the present paper, we reveal the quantum dualities in quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) phases through concrete two bands Hamiltonian models. Our models can realize QAH phases with arbitrary large Chern numbers. In real materials these models may be realized by stacked $n$ layer systems of $c_1=1$ QAH insulators. The topological phase transitions that can change the Chern numbers are studied. And we investigate the gapless edge modes of our models in details, and find a new mechanism for the bulk boundary corresponden…
We study theoretically the two-dimensional topological electric state in a single band semiconductor with strong spin-orbit interactions under harmonic scalar electrostatic potentials. The electronic states described by the spin Landau levels are insulating in the bulk and host gapless edge states in the presence of time-reversal symmetry. Such topological states show the properties of the quantized electric conductivity and the quantized spin Hall conductivity characterized by the spin Chern number $\mathbb{Z}$. The quantization of the two conductivities are robust under various perturbations…
We investigate the topological insulating states of the $p$-band systems in optical lattices induced by the onsite orbital angular momentum polarization, which exhibit gapless edge modes in the absence of Landau levels. This effect arises from the energy level splitting between the onsite $p_x+ip_y$ and $p_x-ip_y$ orbitals by rotating each optical lattice site around its own center. At large rotation angular velocities, this model naturally reduces to two copies of Haldane's quantum Hall model without Landau levels. The distribution of Berry curvature in the momentum space and the quantized Ch…
The large magnetic anisotropy in the layered ferromagnet Fe_{1/4}TaS_2 leads to very sharp reversals of the magnetization $\bf M$ at the coercive field. We have exploited this feature to measure the anomalous Hall effect (AHE), focussing on the AHE conductivity $σ^A_{xy}$ in the inelastic regime. At low temperature T (5-50 K), $σ^A_{xy}$ is T-independent, consistent with the Berry-phase/Karplus-Luttinger theory. Above 50 K, we extract an inelastic AHE conductivity $σ^{in}_{xy}$ that scales as the square of $Δρ$ (the T dependent part of the resistivity $ρ$). The term $σ^{in}_{xy}$ clarifies the…
The quantum spin Hall (QSH) phase is a time reversal invariant electronic state with a bulk electronic band gap that supports the transport of charge and spin in gapless edge states. We show that this phase is associated with a novel $Z_2$ topological invariant, which distinguishes it from an ordinary insulator. The $Z_2$ classification, which is defined for time reversal invariant Hamiltonians, is analogous to the Chern number classification of the quantum Hall effect. We establish the $Z_2$ order of the QSH phase in the two band model of graphene and propose a generalization of the formalism…
Graphene subject to a strong, tilted magnetic field exhibits an insulator-metal transition tunable by tilt-angle, attributed to the transition from a canted antiferromagnetic (CAF) to a ferromagnetic (FM) bulk state at filling factor zero. We develop a theoretical description for the spin and valley edge textures in the two phases, and the implied evolution in the nature of edge modes through the transition. In particular, we show that the CAF has gapless neutral modes in the bulk, but supports gapped charged edge modes. At the transition to the FM state the charged edge modes become gapless a…
