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Stanford EE

Anomalous Hall Crystals in Graphene: interaction-driven Chern bands at zero magnetic field

Summary
Prof Michael Zaletel (University of California, Berkeley)
McCullough, First Floor Auditorium, Room 115
Feb
22
Date(s)
Content

Recent experiments have discovered that pentalayer-graphene subject to a moire superlattice spontaneously breaks time-reversal, resulting in a quantized anomalous Hall effect at zero magnetic field. At fractional filling, the material exhibits a zero-field fractional quantum Hall effect. In contrast to other moire-materials, the origin of Chern bands in this material is not so clear. I will present a theoretical picture in which Chern bands arise from an “anomalous Hall crystal” stabilized primarily by interactions. So far this picture is supported primarily by mean-field calculations, so I’ll conclude with some open questions about how the AHC could be verified.