Non-Abelian fractionalization in topological minibands

Abstract

Motivated by the recent discovery of fractional quantum anomalous Hall states in moiré systems, we consider the possibility of realizing non-Abelian phases in topological minibands. We study a family of moiré systems, skyrmion Chern band models, which can be realized in two-dimensional semiconductor-magnet heterostructures and also capture the essence of twisted transition metal dichalcogenide homobilayers. We show using many-body exact diagonalization that, in spite of strong Berry curvature variations in momentum space, the non-Abelian Moore-Read state can be realized at half filling of the second miniband. These results demonstrate the feasibility of non-Abelian fractionalization in moiré systems without Landau levels and shed light on the desirable conditions for their realization. In particular, we highlight the prospect of realizing the Moore-Read state in twisted semiconductor bilayers.

V1: 5 pages, 4 figures. V2: 5 pages, 5 figures. Added exact diagonalization results for twisted MoTe2. V3: 5 pages, 5 figures (main) + 13 pages, 9 figures (SM). Added results on Pfaffian vs anti-Pfaffian V4: Journal version (PRL, Featured in Physics). 5 pages, 5 figures (main) + 13 pages, 11 figures (SM)