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Hall response and edge current dynamics in Chern insulators out of equilibrium

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Caio, MD 
Cooper, NR 
Bhaseen, MJ 

Abstract

We investigate the transport properties of Chern insulators following a quantum quench between topological and non-topological phases. Recent works have shown that this yields an excited state for which the Chern number is preserved under unitary evolution. However, this does not imply the preservation of other physical observables, as we stressed in our previous work. Here we provide an analysis of the Hall response following a quantum quench in an isolated system, with explicit results for the Haldane model. We show that the Hall conductance is no longer related to the Chern number in the post-quench state, in agreement with previous work. We also examine the dynamics of the edge currents in finite-size systems with open boundary conditions along one direction. We show that the late-time behavior is captured by a Generalized Gibbs Ensemble, after multiple traversals of the sample. We discuss the effects of generic open boundary conditions and confinement potentials.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.mes-hall

Journal Title

PHYSICAL REVIEW B

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2469-9950
2469-9969

Volume Title

94

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K030094/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/J017639/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant IDs: EP/J017639/1, EP/K030094/1, EP/L015854/1), Thomas Young Center