Topological phase transitions in glassy quantum matter

Isac Sahlberg, Alex Weststrom, Kim Poyhonen, Teemu Ojanen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

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Abstract

Amorphous systems have rapidly gained attention as promising platforms for topological matter. In this work, we establish a scaling theory of amorphous topological phase transitions driven by the density of lattice points in two dimensions. By carrying out a finite-size scaling analysis of topological invariants averaged over discrete and continuum random geometries, we discover critical properties of Chern and Z(2) glass transitions. Even for short-range hopping models, the Chern glass phase may persist down to the fundamental lower bound given by the classical percolation threshold. While the topological indices accurately satisfy the postulated one-parameter scaling, they do not generally flow to the closest integer value in the thermodynamic limit. Furthermore, the value of the critical exponent describing the diverging localization length varies continuously along the phase boundary and is not fixed by the symmetry class of the Hamiltonian. We conclude that the critical behavior of amorphous topological systems exhibit characteristic features not observed in disordered systems, motivating a wealth of interesting research directions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number013053
Number of pages9
JournalPHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Jan 2020
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • SCALING THEORY

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