Condensed Matter Seminar - Ganpathy Murthy, University of KY - Hamiltonian Theory of Fractionally Filled Chern Bands
Abstract: When a band of noninteracting electrons has a nontrivial Chern number, it is called a Chern band. When such a band is fully filled, the dimensionless Hall conductance is the Chern number. There is considerable numerical evidence that in the presence of suitable interactions, when a Chern band is fractionally filled, the electrons form insulating states which have many of the properties of fractional quantum Hall states. In the continuum, we know that incompressible FQH states can be understood in terms of Composite Fermions, which can be formed by "flux attachment". In this talk I will present work that demonstrates that one can construct a Hamiltonian theory of the fractional Chern insulators in terms of Composite Fermion variables which can be used to compute gaps, collective excitations etc.
Location: PCTS Seminar Room
Date/Time: 12/10/12 at 1:15 pm - 12/10/12 at 2:30 pm
Category: Condensed Matter Seminar
Department: Physics