Magnetic End States in a Strongly Interacting One-Dimensional Topological Kondo Insulator
Topological Kondo insulators are strongly correlated materials where itinerant electrons hybridize with localized spins, giving rise to a topologically nontrivial band structure. Here, we use nonperturbative bosonization and renormalization-group techniques to study theoretically a one-dimensional topological Kondo insulator, described as a Kondo-Heisenberg model, where the Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain is coupled to a Hubbard chain through a Kondo exchange interaction in the p-wave channel (i.e., a strongly correlated version of the prototypical Tamm-Schockley model).We derive and solve renormalization-group equations at two-loop order in the Kondo parameter, and find that, at half filling, the charge degrees of freedom in the Hubbard chain acquire a Mott gap, even in the case of a noninteracting conduction band (Hubbard parameter U = 0). Furthermore, at low enough temperatures, the system maps onto a spin-1/2 ladder with local ferromagnetic interactions along the rungs, effectively locking the spin degrees of freedom into a spin-1 chain with frozen charge degrees of freedom. This structure behaves as a spin-1 Haldane chain, a prototypical interacting topological spin model, and features two magnetic spin-1/2 end states for chains with open boundary conditions. In conclusion, our analysis allows us to derive an insightful connection between topological Kondo insulators in one spatial dimensionmore »
- Authors:
-
[1]
; [2]
; [3]
- Univ. Nacional de Rosario and Instituto de Fisica Rosario, Rosario (Argentina); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
- Univ. Nacional de Rosario and Instituto de Fisica Rosario, Rosario (Argentina)
- Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); Monash Univ., Melbourne, VIC (Australia)
- Publication Date:
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0001911; DESC0001911
- Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review. X
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 5; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 2160-3308
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society
- Research Org:
- Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
- Sponsoring Org:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1182821
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1452836