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Multiplicative Chern insulator: Generalized bulk-boundary correspondences, 4π Aharonov-Bohm effect, and adiabatic evolution to topological skyrmion phase with symmetry breaking

Archi Banerjee1,2,3 and Ashley M. Cook1,2

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 085105 – Published 4 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9f5b-y98z

Abstract

We study multiplicative Chern insulators (MCIs) as canonical examples of multiplicative topological phases of matter. Constructing the MCI Bloch Hamiltonian as a symmetry-protected tensor product of two topologically nontrivial parent Chern insulators (CIs), we study two-dimensional (2D) MCIs and introduce three-dimensional mixed MCIs, constructed by requiring the two 2D parent Hamiltonians share only one momentum component. We study the 2D MCI response to time-reversal symmetric flux insertion, observing a 4π Aharonov-Bohm effect, relating these topological states to fractional quantum Hall states via the microscopic field theories of the quantum skyrmion Hall effect. As part of this response, we observe evidence of quantization of a proposed topological invariant for compactified many-body states to a rational number, suggesting higher-dimensional topology may also be relevant. Finally, we study effects of bulk perturbations breaking the symmetry-protected tensor-product structure of the child Hamiltonian, finding the MCI evolves adiabatically into a topological skyrmion phase.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 085105– Published 4 February, 2026
  • Received 27 December 2024
  • Revised 7 December 2025
  • Accepted 5 January 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by Max Planck Society.

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