Non-Abelian Quantum Hall Effect in Topological Flat Bands

Yi-Fei Wang, Hong Yao, Zheng-Cheng Gu, Chang-De Gong, and D. N. Sheng

Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 126805 – Published 21 March 2012

Abstract

Inspired by the recent theoretical discovery of robust fractional topological phases without a magnetic field, we search for the non-Abelian quantum Hall effect in lattice models with topological flat bands. Through extensive numerical studies on the Haldane model with three-body hard-core bosons loaded into a topological flat band, we find convincing numerical evidence of a stable $ν = 1$ bosonic non-Abelian quantum Hall effect, with the characteristic threefold quasidegeneracy of ground states on a torus, a quantized Chern number, and a robust spectrum gap. Moreover, the spectrum for two-quasihole states also shows a finite energy gap, with the number of states in the lower-energy sector satisfying the same counting rule as the Moore-Read Pfaffian state.

Received 31 October 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.126805

Authors & Affiliations

Yi-Fei Wang^1,2, Hong Yao³, Zheng-Cheng Gu⁴, Chang-De Gong^1,5, and D. N. Sheng²

¹Center for Statistical and Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, and Department of Physics, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China
²Department of Physics and Astronomy, California State University, Northridge, California 91330, USA
³Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
⁴Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
⁵National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China