Published in

Nature Research, Nature Communications, 1(14), 2023

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42773-7

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Mott insulators with boundary zeros

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

AbstractThe topological classification of electronic band structures is based on symmetry properties of Bloch eigenstates of single-particle Hamiltonians. In parallel, topological field theory has opened the doors to the formulation and characterization of non-trivial phases of matter driven by strong electron-electron interaction. Even though important examples of topological Mott insulators have been constructed, the relevance of the underlying non-interacting band topology to the physics of the Mott phase has remained unexplored. Here, we show that the momentum structure of the Green’s function zeros defining the “Luttinger surface" provides a topological characterization of the Mott phase related, in the simplest description, to the one of the single-particle electronic dispersion. Considerations on the zeros lead to the prediction of new phenomena: a topological Mott insulator with an inverted gap for the bulk zeros must possess gapless zeros at the boundary, which behave as a form of “topological antimatter” annihilating conventional edge states. Placing band and Mott topological insulators in contact produces distinctive observable signatures at the interface, revealing the otherwise spectroscopically elusive Green’s function zeros.