Route towards Localization for Quantum Anomalous Hall Systems with Chern Number 2

Abstract

The quantum anomalous Hall system with Chern number 2 can be destroyed by sufficiently strong disorder. During its process towards localization, it was found that the electronic states will be directly localized to an Anderson insulator (with Chern number 0), without an intermediate Hall plateau with Chern number 1. Here we investigate the topological origin of this phenomenon, by calculating the band structures and Chern numbers for disordered supercells. We find that on the route towards localization, there exists a hidden state with Chern number 1, but it is too short and too fluctuating to be practically observable. This intermediate state cannot be stabilized even after some "smart design" of the model and this should be a universal phenomena for insulators with high Chern numbers. By performing numerical scaling of conductances, we also plot the renormalization group flows for this transition, with Chern number 1 state as an unstable fixed point. This is distinct from known results, and can be tested by experiments and further theoretical analysis.

8 pages, 6 figures

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Topological Anderson insulating phases in the interacting Haldane model
• Localization Trajectory and Chern-Simons axion coupling for Bilayer Quantum Anomalous Hall Systems
• Numerical Study of Disorder on the Orbital Magnetization in Two Dimensions
• Instability of QBC systems to Topological Anderson Insulating phases
• Photonic band-gap transmission map of graphene in a defective optical structure