Topological Insulators and Nematic Phases from Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in 2D Fermi Systems with a Quadratic Band Crossing

Abstract

We investigate the stability of a quadratic band-crossing point (QBCP) in 2D fermionic systems. At the non-interacting level, we show that a QBCP exists and is topologically stable for a Berry flux $\pm 2\pi$, if the point symmetry group has either fourfold or sixfold rotational symmetries. This putative topologically stable free-fermion QBCP is marginally unstable to {\em arbitrarily weak} short-range repulsive interactions. We consider both spinless and spin-1/2 fermions. Four possible ordered states result: a quantum anomalous Hall phase, a quantum spin Hall phase, a nematic phase, and a nematic-spin-nematic phase.

4 pages, 2 figures

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• The electronic properties of graphene
• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• The Helical Liquid and the Edge of Quantum Spin Hall Systems
• Electronic properties of bilayer and multilayer graphene
• Fermi liquid instabilities in the spin channel
• Dynamic generation of spin orbit coupling
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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Non-Fermi Liquid behavior in Neutral Bilayer Graphene