Phase transitions and adiabatic preparation of a fractional Chern insulator in a boson cold atom model

Abstract

We investigate the fate of hardcore bosons in a Harper-Hofstadter model which was experimentally realized by Aidelsburger et al. [Nature Physics 11 , 162 (2015)] at half filling of the lowest band. We discuss the stability of an emergent fractional Chern insulator (FCI) state in a finite region of the phase diagram that is separated from a superfluid state by a first-order transition when tuning the band topology following the protocol used in the experiment. Since crossing a first-order transition is unfavorable for adiabatically preparing the FCI state, we extend the model to stabilize a featureless insulating state. The transition between this phase and the topological state proves to be continuous, providing a path in parameter space along which an FCI state could be adiabatically prepared. To further corroborate this statement, we perform time-dependent DMRG calculations which demonstrate that the FCI state may indeed be reached by adiabatically tuning a simple product state.

7 pages, 7 figures, published version

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• Fractional quantum Hall states at zero magnetic field
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• Adiabatic continuation of Fractional Chern Insulators to Fractional Quantum Hall States
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Stability of fractional Chern insulators in the effective continuum limit of Harper-Hofstadter bands with Chern number $|C|>1$
• Stability, phase transitions, and numerical breakdown of fractional Chern insulators in higher Chern bands of the Hofstadter model
• Bosonic Pfaffian State in the Hofstadter-Bose-Hubbard Model
• Charge and statistics of lattice quasiholes from density measurements: a Tree Tensor Network study
• Unitary preparation of many body Chern insulators: Adiabatic bulk boundary correspondence