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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 23: Topological Insulators and Weyl Semimetals (joint session MA/TT)

TT 23.2: Vortrag

Dienstag, 19. März 2024, 09:45–10:00, H 2013

Isotropic 3D topological phases with broken time reversal symmetry — Helene Spring¹, Anton R. Akhmerov¹, and •Daniel Varjas^2,3,4 — ¹Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 4056, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands — ²Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova University Center, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden — ³Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Strasse 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany — ⁴IFW Dresden and Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat, Helmholtzstr. 20, 01069 Dresden, Germany

Axial vectors, such as current or magnetization, are commonly used order parameters in time-reversal symmetry breaking systems. These vectors also break isotropy in three dimensional systems, lowering the spatial symmetry. We demonstrate that it is possible to construct a fully isotropic and inversion-symmetric three-dimensional medium where time-reversal symmetry is systematically broken. We propose an amorphous system with scalar time-reversal symmetry breaking, implemented by hopping through chiral magnetic clusters along the bonds. The average spatial symmetries alone protect a statistical topological insulator phase in this system. We demonstrate the topological nature of our model by constructing a bulk integer topological invariant, which guarantees gapless surface spectrum on any surface with several overlapping Dirac nodes, analogous to crystalline mirror Chern insulators. We also show the expected transport properties of a three-dimensional statistical topological insulator, which remains critical on the surface for odd values of the invariant.

Keywords: amorphous materials; topological phases; topological insulators; spatial symmetry; time-reversal breaking