Electric-Magnetic Duality and Topological Insulators

Journal Article · Fri Oct 23 00:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.103.171601· OSTI ID:21370776

Karch, A ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-1560 (United States)

We work out the action of the SL(2,Z) electric-magnetic duality group for an insulator with a nontrivial permittivity, permeability, and theta angle. This theory has recently been proposed to be the correct low-energy effective action for topological insulators. As applications, we give manifestly SL(2,Z) covariant expressions for the Faraday rotation at orthogonal incidence at the interface of two such materials, as well as for the induced magnetic and electric charges, slightly clarifying the meaning of expressions previously derived in the literature. We also use electric-magnetic duality to find a gravitational dual for a strongly coupled version of this theory using the gauge/gravity correspondence.

• OSTI ID: 21370776
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 17; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.171601; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
ACTION INTEGRAL
DUALITY
ELECTRIC CHARGES
FARADAY EFFECT
GRAVITATION
PERMEABILITY
PERMITTIVITY
SL GROUPS
TOPOLOGY
DIELECTRIC PROPERTIES
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
INTEGRALS
LIE GROUPS
MATHEMATICS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
SYMMETRY GROUPS