Stability of Chern and Fractional Chern insulators

Note: Note: Event moved from 11/26 to 12/2/14
Speaker: Dr. Adolfo Grushin, MPIPKS, Dresden

When: December 2, 2014 (Tue), 11:00AM to 12:00PM (add to my calendar)
Location: SCI 328
Hosted by: Claudio Chamon

This event is part of the Condensed Matter Theory Seminar Series.

Abstract: Chern insulators (CI) and fractional Chern insulators (FCI) are zero field lattice analogues of the integer and fractional quantum Hall effects respectively. In this talk we will address the important problem of when and how they are induced by interactions. For the former, we will focus on the existing disagreement between mean field theory results and exact diagonalization/infinite density matrix renormalization group (iDMRG)studies regarding the emergence of the CI state from a semi-metal via short range interactions. For the FCI state I will exemplify its full numerical characterization with the help of iDMRG, a method which will allows us to address, amongst other things, the character of the Metal-FCI phase transition, a possible benchmark for future experiments.