Quantum anomalous Hall states in the p-orbital honeycomb optical lattices

Journal Article · Tue Feb 15 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.83.023615· OSTI ID:21537203

Machi, Zhang ^[1]; Hsianghsuan, Hung; Congjun, Wu ^[1]; Chuanwei, Zhang ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, California 92093 (United States)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164 (United States)

We study the quantum anomalous Hall states in the p-orbital bands of the honeycomb optical lattices loaded with single-component fermions. Such an effect has not yet been realized in both condensed-matter and cold-atom systems. By applying the available experimental techniques to rotate each lattice site around its own center, the band structures become topologically nontrivial. At a certain rotation angular velocity {Omega}, a flat band structure appears with localized eigenstates carrying chiral current moments. By imposing the soft confining potential, the density profile exhibits a wedding-cake-shaped distribution with insulating plateaus at commensurate fillings. Moreover, the inhomogeneous confining potential induces dissipationless circulation currents, the magnitudes and chiralities of which vary with the distance from the trap center. In the insulating regions, the Hall conductances are quantized, and in the metallic regions, the directions and magnitudes of chiral currents can not be described by the usual local-density approximation. The quantum anomalous Hall effects are robust at temperature scales that are small compared to band gaps, which increase the feasibility of experimental realizations.

• OSTI ID: 21537203
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 83, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.83.023615; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ANGULAR VELOCITY
APPROXIMATIONS
ATOMS
CHIRALITY
DENSITY
EIGENSTATES
HALL EFFECT
P STATES
POTENTIALS
QUANTUM MECHANICS
ROTATION
TRAPPING
CALCULATION METHODS
ENERGY LEVELS
MECHANICS
MOTION
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
VELOCITY